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This week's magazine

3 April 1999

Issue 2180

New Scientist issue 2180 cover
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On the cover

Features

The god of small things

News

Not so green

Opinion

It's violent out there
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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.

The god of small things

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.

Dust mite's dilemma

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.

Ruling passions

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 fifth element

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.

Not so green

CUTTING grass pollutes the air even if a hand mower is used, claim researchers in Colorado. Volatile organic compounds such as acetone and formaldehyde escape from freshly mown grass within seconds, and even more are released as it dries, according to Ray Fall of the University of Colorado in Boulder. Fall and his colleagues measured …

News

Spot light

News

Breathe easy

News

Vain death

News

Attentive gene

News

Grown astray

News

Wise finches opt for the unisex look

News

Plastic recycling toughens up its act

News

Not so fast . . .

News

Institutional sexism

News

Hot and slippery

News

Killer pheasants

News

No bones about it...

News

Technology

Calculating passions

News

Don't blame the father

News

It's raining pesticides

News

Off their food

News

Movie mail

News

Heart of the matter

News

Spatial memo

News

Anyone listening?

News

Burning money

News

Living glue

News

We'll be right back after the break . . .

News

Exquisite taste

News

False starts

News

Ulcers on tap

News

Shaky defences

News

Norwegian judge keeps wolves at the door

News

The pigs must die!

News

Ray of light

News

Border controls

News

Rudder redesign

News

Rocket rigs

News

Physics

Honey, I shrank the reactor

News

Physics

The soft footfall that signals dinner

News

Physics

Picture this

News

Physics

Diamonds aren't forever

News

Shock therapy

News

Plane sailing

News

Technology

Who's talking?

News

Technology

Crane games

News

Technology

Inventive welcome

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.

It's violent out there

PEOPLE are fascinated by explosions, especially big ones. And they don't come much bigger than the one picked up by the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSax on 23 January. For a few tens of seconds the gamma-ray burster GRB 990123 radiated more energy than a million normal galaxies—that's around a billion billion Suns. If the energy had …

Opinion

Dracula plague

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.

The god of small things

IMAGINE swimming inside a living cell. Molecules dance before your eyes among the organelles like schools of fish around a tropical reef. Reactions are unfolding all about you: a large, predatory enzyme splits a skinny sugar molecule into fragments, tiny amino acids line up like synchronised swimmers to form the long winding chains of a …

Features

Dust mite's dilemma

Features

Ruling passions

Features

The fifth element

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.

Not such a bad career after all

STUDYING science improves your chances of getting a job. If it is a science job, you will be reasonably well paid and you are likely to stay in it for about ten years. This picture of a career in science emerges from a new report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The report, Human Resources …

Forum

Bloody dangerous

Books & Arts

A tale of lost tongues

Books & Arts

In safe hands?

Forum

All fired up

Forum

Forum

Sperm 'n' eggs

Books & Arts

Shockingly old

Books & Arts

Farewell, death

Books & Arts

The Ultimate Terrorists by Jessica Stern and Saddam's Secrets: The Hunt for Iraq's Hidden Weapons by Tim Trevan

Books & Arts

Edinburgh's other festival

Books & Arts

Worlds apart

Books & Arts

from Los Angeles

Books & Arts

Domed life

Books & Arts

The evicted spirit

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

OUR ITEM about the motion-sensing lighting that plunged a conference into darkness when nobody moved (6 March) provoked a response that reveals a disturbing social problem. Two readers have been brave enough to tell us about their encounters with automated lighting in public toilets. Their stories are identical and may well be typical of many …

Regulars

The Last Word

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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