Issue 2154 | Magazine cover date: 3 October 1998 | New Scientist

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3 October 1998

Issue 2154

New Scientist issue 2154 cover

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On the cover

Features

Where the sea meets the sky

News

Space attacks

Opinion

In your face

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New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Where the sea meets the sky

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The big break

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Gas on the brain

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Superhumans

Features

Table of contents

News

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Space attacks

THE Leonid meteor storm that may light up the sky in Asia when it strikes the Earth next month could pose a bigger threat to satellites than astronomers had feared. Every year, around mid-November, the Earth crosses the orbit of a comet called Tempel-Tuttle and passes through debris the comet has shed. This burns up …

News

Meat cheats

News

First things first

News

Green power

News

Every dollar counts

News

Cold War throwbacks get cash lifeline

News

Stingrays crack a tough food problem

News

The odd couple

News

Night people

News

Earth's alter ego

News

Early birds

News

Technology

Picture this

News

Soaking it up

News

Icy reaction

News

X-ray vision

News

Colds frozen out

News

Innocent victims

News

Which prion?

News

Shot-stopper

News

Keep it up

News

Delicate operations

News

Virtual orifice

News

Timely tasks

News

Green streets

News

Daddy knows best

News

Starquake turned night into day

News

Crop circles

News

Teething problems

News

Radar on the storm

News

Making a billing

News

Nauseating business

News

Old before their time

News

A taste for naked fruit

News

Technology

No waiting

News

Technology

Computer clobber

News

Technology

Hot messages

News

First farmers

News

Blown away

News

Hands today, faces tomorrow

News

Unwanted immigrants

News

Trashing the planet

News

Deep impact

News

Batteries not included

News

Bad sports

News

Opinion

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

In your face

TWELVE hours of microsurgery. A hurriedly assembled team of hot-shot surgeons. The prospect of transplant medicine passing a major milestone. All these ingredients were there in the story of Clint Hallam's new arm which captivated the world last week. And don't we all know it. We've been bombarded by ghoulish speculation about the psychological side …

Opinion

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Where the sea meets the sky

THE wind scours the island at a steady 40 kilometres an hour. Dozens of mother gulls are riding it, each hovering protectively above her downy chicks. One of the birds descends and delivers a swift kick to the back of Julie Thayer's head. Thayer winces, then goes about her business. Gales, guano and the occasional …

Features

The big break

Features

Gas on the brain

Features

Superhumans

Features

More

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

. . . . .

NOWADAYS any research involving human guinea pigs raises issues of great concern throughout the Western world. Does Britain have people who are sufficiently wise and well equipped to advise on the complex ethical issues raised by genetic and reproductive research? I sent Tessa Jowell, the public health minister, a recent New Scientist editorial which claimed …

Forum

Genes in a pill

Forum

Lacking in gravity

Books & Arts

Balancing act

Books & Arts

Empty talk

Forum

Everything in the garden's lovely

Forum

Heart beat

Books & Arts

Out of the egg

Books & Arts

Ocean molecular

Books & Arts

from Oxford

Books & Arts

Cycad story

Books & Arts

Reason and reality

Books & Arts

As good as it gets

Books & Arts

A sure thing

Books & Arts

Common tongue

Books & Arts

Leading lights

Books & Arts

Bohr remembered

Books & Arts

The power of sums

Books & Arts

Killer Earth

Books & Arts

Regulars

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Feedback

IT SOUNDS like two nightmares blended into one. You find yourself in an exam you weren't prepared for. Worse still, you're wearing next to nothing. There's just you and your reflection in a mirror. And you have to do maths problems. Feedback is relieved not to have lived through this experience. But this was the …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word