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This week's magazine

23 January 1999

Issue 2170

New Scientist issue 2170 cover
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On the cover

Features

Sun traps

News

Hot plankton

Opinion

Choose ignorance
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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.

Sun traps

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 human touch

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.

Birds of a feather

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 am I?

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.

Hot plankton

A SWITCH in the species of phytoplankton dominating the Southern Ocean could accelerate global warming. During an expedition to the Ross Sea, a team led by Kevin Arrigo of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC found that diatoms dominated wherever layers of water at different temperatures were poorly mixed ( Science, vol 283, …

News

Anxious mothers

News

Mars melts

News

Spilt oil

News

Why rockets fly better with jelly

News

Dangerous diet

News

Silicon Valley turns to levitation

News

Resistance fighters

News

Nuclear reaction

News

It's maddening

News

Spanish dilemma

News

A dirty business

News

Do the househunter's bee-bop

News

Epilepsy dangers

News

Will it crack?

News

Piggy in the middle

News

Technology

Infection and reflection

News

Linus Pauling got it right . . . again

News

Sticking power

News

Sorry, we'll be late

News

No sex please

News

Bitter legacy

News

Over the limit?

News

Milk hormone faces growing opposition

News

Fire without smoke

News

The baiting game

News

Brassed off

News

Life

Their best shot

News

Life

Bubble wrap

News

Life

Bigger, not better

News

Life

Ménage à trois gives birth to a healthy hog

News

Double trouble

News

It's a rat trap

News

Testing times ahead

News

Balloon plan bursts

News

Not so clean

News

Politics on ice

News

Catalogue of disasters

News

Total recall

News

Eggshells break into collagen market

News

Disaster movies

News

Technology

Video meter maid

News

Technology

Icebergs ahead

News

Technology

Retro reflection

News

Pill power

News

Why we do it

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.

Choose ignorance

THREE years ago Britain was stunned when the government released news of a new brain disease that looked suspiciously like the human equivalent of BSE. Since then an ongoing public inquiry has produced a steady stream of headlines less than flattering to officialdom. The death toll from new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has crept up …

Opinion

Sex in the Midwest

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.

Sun traps

IT'S nothing if not frustrating. Every day the Sun pours down on us ten thousand times more energy than we need to drive every human activity-yet we've still to figure out a cost-effective way of harnessing it. Nature doesn't have this problem. Solar cells simply grow on trees where photosynthesis in leaves turns sunlight into …

Features

The human touch

Features

Birds of a feather

Features

Where am I?

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.

Age-old story

WHY do we have to die? We are not like machines—our bodies constantly repair and renew themselves. And unlike a brand new car, which starts to wear out the moment it leaves the showroom, a newborn baby's immunity, coordination, heart and circulation will actually "improve" during its first decade. True, the chances of dying—mortality—are high …

Inside Science

Power at the grassroots

Forum

Northern exposure

Books & Arts

Wild Europe

Books & Arts

False image

Books & Arts

Web of thieves

Books & Arts

Web of lies

Books & Arts

Forbidden fruit

Books & Arts

Swarming life

Books & Arts

Sunny side of the Universe

Books & Arts

from Oxford

Books & Arts

The next big thing

Forum

Fatal inaction

Forum

. . . . .

Forum

A class act

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.

Fedback

WHERE does Foster Steam Turbine Consultants pick up its merchandise? And who are its customers? According to its website, Foster sells "the highest quality used gas turbines, steam engines, power plants and generators" ( www.usedturbines.com ). The company's "extraordinary buy of the week" is indeed extraordinary: "One 1.2-Gigawatt Nuclear Power Plant, 70 per cent complete, …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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