Issue 2171 | Magazine cover date: 30 January 1999 | New Scientist

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30 January 1999

Issue 2171

New Scientist issue 2171 cover

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On the cover

Features

Quantum melting pots

News

Venerable worms

Opinion

Bit before it?

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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.

Quantum melting pots

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.

In the shadow of the Moon

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.

Magic molecules

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.

I is the law

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.

Venerable worms

THE ancestors of major animal groups may have existed 700 million years earlier than biologists realised. The fossil record suggests an "explosion" of animal life 530 million years ago, when many groups appeared. But a team led by Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University has traced the origins of nematode worms to 1.2 billion years …

News

Marine invader

News

Bright idea

News

Drink to this

News

Bigger is better

News

Madly mutating

News

Cheap and nasty

News

Termites play it cool on blind dates

News

Vampires' secret

News

Alien lights

News

Delivering a disaster?

News

Net bust

News

A good scrub

News

Technology

Privacy on parade

News

The heaviest element of them all

News

Survival of the weakest

News

Toxic sponge

News

Smelly vision

News

Only in Japan

News

Going for a spin

News

Rotten eggs

News

Worming a way in

News

A work-out does wonders for transplant muscle

News

Poisonous fat

News

Dry as a bone

News

No contest

News

Milk me, please

News

A terrifying power

News

End of the line?

News

Ravaged reefs

News

The price of success

News

Rainmakers

News

Technology

Absolute din

News

Technology

Duff awards

News

Incinerators blamed for toxic fallout

News

Tobacco payback

News

Local heroes

News

Democracy in chains

News

Grow-your-own organs

News

US paves the way for embryonic stem cell transplants

News

Jam packed

News

Polluting the flame

News

Technology

On your marks

News

Gut reaction

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.

Bit before it?

ANYONE who invested in information technology stocks will have seen their shares rocket recently. After years of hype, the information revolution is finally here. As the futurist George Gilder points out, telecommunications networks carry more valuable goods than all the world's supertankers. Yet despite the practical and financial importance of information, its nature remains obscure. …

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.

Quantum melting pots

HUMANKIND waited a long time for bronze. But when it arrived, it brought a revolution that changed civilisation for ever. Then came iron with its hard edge for swords and ploughshares and, later still, steel helped to usher in the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century the pace quickened. In less than a hundred years, …

Features

In the shadow of the Moon

Features

Magic molecules

Features

I is the law

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.

Water we count on

CAN I drink this water? Is it safe to bathe here? These are perennial questions to which we should expect instant, easy, inexpensive and reliable answers. So it is surprising, given the importance of clean water, that we still rely on archaic analytical techniques to test water for disease. For more than 100 years, we …

Forum

Coffee-table Mars

Books & Arts

Up for grabs

Books & Arts

Blood on their hands

Forum

. . . . .

Forum

Traffic lights signal change

Forum

from Oxford

Books & Arts

Street legal

Books & Arts

Gravity's man

Books & Arts

Firestarter

Books & Arts

Ripe old age

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

NOT MANY people know this, but January and March this year will each see two full moons, while February will have none at all. According to Keith Dawson's website, Tasty Bits from the Technology Front ( www.tbtf.com ), this happens far more rarely than once in a blue moon. Blue moons—the second full moon in …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word