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This week's magazine

14 November 1998

Issue 2160

New Scientist issue 2160 cover
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Editor's picks

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.

Speed freaks

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.

Taken by storm

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.

ISS Titanic

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.

Just for you

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.

Lords reckon it's high time for a change

BRITISH law should be altered to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana and pharmacists to supply it, according to an influential House of Lords committee. At present, doctors in Britain are not permitted to prescribe cannabis, and patients who want it to relieve the symptoms of diseases such as multiple sclerosis must turn to the black …

News

Fertile waters

News

Cloning made easy

News

Terror alert

News

Blind aid

News

Tokyo's missile shield

News

It sounds like a prescription for chaos

News

A tale of destiny and dentistry

News

Musical memory

News

Good relations

News

Poisonous cure

News

Stormy weather

News

Still jumping

News

Technology

Turbulent times

News

Danger, hazard ahead!

News

Hard to swallow

News

It's behind you!

News

Bug hunter

News

Stuck up

News

Healing hearts

News

The weather piles on the pressure

News

Buckytube crewcut fuels flat TV displays

News

Let battle commence

News

United in dissent

News

Trail of dung spells disaster for roaches

News

The mighty falling

News

At a loss

News

Earth

Quick change

News

Body talk

News

The tingle factor

News

Crystal surfboard

News

Talking while the world warms

News

Will cellular creations spin out of control?

News

Stereo eye

News

Technology

DNA circuits

News

Technology

Fertiliser for fish

News

Technology

TV preview

News

Medieval mystery

News

Radio checkup

News

Hold the champagne

News

Stirred and shaken

News

Recipe for disaster

News

Bound for Mars

News

Spam flops at polls

News

Smoking crackdown

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.

Time to go public

THE ANNOUNCEMENT that two separate groups of scientists in the US had successfully produced cultures of human embryonic stem cells is good news for science and even better news for Geron of California. The cells may have the potential to grow into any type of human tissue and could eventually be used to repair damaged …

Opinion

Let's chill out

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.

Speed freaks

IMAGINE a device no bigger than a credit card that could extract your DNA from a drop of blood and map your entire genetic code while you wait. In an instant, you'd have an estimate of your risk for developing cancer or diabetes, perhaps, or find out how your cells were responding to drug therapy. …

Features

Taken by storm

Features

ISS Titanic

Features

Just for you

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.

Ultimate interface

WHEN it comes to the environment, interfaces are where the big action is. Sometimes this action is dramatic: landslides, gale-force winds causing havoc in forests, or rivers flooding farmland. Of course, more often this interaction is less dramatic because the processes occur over very long timescales, but the effects are just as important. The slow …

Inside Science

. . .

Forum

Running on empty

Forum

Keeping animal research ethical

Forum

Chaos in the country

Books & Arts

Arctic voices

Forum

Russia, great teacher

Books & Arts

We are the aliens

Books & Arts

Through the looking glass

Books & Arts

Time tunnelling

Books & Arts

Wise up

Books & Arts

Gravity sucks

Books & Arts

from Cambridge

Books & Arts

Ruddy maverick

Books & Arts

A walk on the wild side

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

" THAT TIME of year thou mayst in me behold/When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang . . ." So wrote Shakespeare in his 73rd sonnet, comparing his advancing age with the last days of autumn. And it's …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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