Issue 2193 | Magazine cover date: 3 July 1999 | New Scientist

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3 July 1999

Issue 2193

New Scientist issue 2193 cover

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On the cover

Features

Higher and higher

Fluid shockers

Opinion

Pure nonsense

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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.

Higher and higher

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.

Technology

Gamma force

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.

Live and let live

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.

Your mission is . . .

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.

Left brain Right brain

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.

Technology

Fluid shockers

Motorola is patenting a shock absorber for cars in which motion is damped by a fluid whose viscosity increases in an electric field. This "electro-rheological" fluid is sealed in a container between two electrodes that can apply a potential of thousands of volts, giving the driver push-button control over the car's ride-damping on bumpy roads. …

News

Space shower

News

Wise eyes

News

Bloodthirsty

News

Turncoats

News

Sssh! There'll be trouble if we wake them up

News

We will fight them…

News

Cereal sleuths are losing layers of history

News

Technology

Explosive legacy

News

Chain gang

News

Laptop phone promises speedier transmission

News

The enemy within

News

Digital flicks

News

What a din

News

Coral grief

News

Revenge of the undead

News

Poverty-stricken

News

To cook up new species, heat gently

News

Days just drag

News

Spot the prion

News

Skywatcher

News

Rumble in the jungle

News

Family flaw

News

Rough justice

News

Planet snappers are foiled again

News

Pushy number

News

Ripe for change

News

Quantum well

News

Bang on time

News

Breeding trouble

News

Technology

Poisonous bug

News

Technology

Deep cleaning

News

Oh, it's you

News

Heavenly scent

News

Lost in space

News

Gene crops face new hurdles

News

The smog of war

News

Culling all cats

News

War dividend

News

Red, white and dioxin

News

Going underground

News

The sky's the limit

News

The big picture

News

Advantage, BBC, thanks to the rain radar

News

It's business as usual

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.

Pure nonsense

Science is about understanding how the world works. Or is it? Someone must have been resolutely plugging this notion for many years, since it doesn't seem very controversial. Newton and Darwin were trying to understand the world, right? And aren't they the quintessential scientists, the very archetypes? Let's see where this thinking leads. It leads …

Opinion

Westminster Diary

Opinion

Ode to Albert

Opinion

Breaking the code

Opinion

Mud sticks

Opinion

True grit

Opinion

Blair's blunder

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.

Higher and higher

When Hergé, the Belgian cartoonist, needed a model for his eccentric Professor Calculus in the Tintin cartoons, he didn't have to look far. His lanky, long-haired boffin is the spitting image of Auguste Piccard, a Swiss physicist working at the University of Brussels. And the cartoon's heroic voyages-with a nuclear-powered Moonrocket and shark submarine-bear an …

Features

Technology

Gamma force

Features

Live and let live

Features

Your mission is . . .

Features

Left brain Right brain

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.

from Oxford

The Meaning of it All by Richard Feynman, Penguin The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman, 4th Estate Full Moon by Michael Light, Jonathan Cape The Little Book of Science by John Gribbin, Penguin Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner, Faber Visions by Michli Kaku, Oxford How the Mind Works by Stephen Pinker, …

Books & Arts

True crimes

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

LOOK out for a new rash of bogus computer virus warnings in the wake of Melissa and ExploreZip. Meanwhile, here's an old chestnut from the US Department of Energy's Net security site site ( www.ciac.org/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#geeks ) which can stand another airing. Sadly, we cannot give due credit, as the author is anonymous. "Warning! Warning! Warning! …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word