Issue 2207 | Magazine cover date: 9 October 1999 | New Scientist

Skip to content

9 October 1999

Issue 2207

New Scientist issue 2207 cover

Previous issue Next issue

On the cover

Features

Weather warning

Don't blow it

Opinion

The politics of water

Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine

View in the app

Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app

Find a previous edition online

Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

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.

Weather warning

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.

Desert rave

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.

Back from the dead

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.

Tune in turn off

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.

Life

Don't blow it

BUNGED up with a cold? Use that tissue for wiping only. Every time you blow your nose, you're just prolonging the misery. Blowing your nose drives virus-laden mucus deep into the sinuses, a new study concludes. Sneezing and coughing don't do this, although of course they increase the chance of spreading your germs to friends, …

News

Life

Humble eateries are good for your guts

News

HIV's weak point

News

Running on empty

News

Hold your fire

News

When every day is Friday the 13th

News

Going, going . . .

News

Attacking AIDS

News

See no evil

News

Bizarre origins of a star among noses

News

Splendid isolation

News

It's a turn-off

News

Fellow travellers

News

Anything goes

News

Hard rain

News

Life

Darwin tames a killer

News

Health

IVF smokescreen

News

Health

From a heart drug to a safe male Pill

News

Sharpen up

News

Sounds wild

News

Breaking point

News

Melody maker

News

Long players

News

Cancer stopper

News

Mother's darlings

News

It's good to stalk

News

Golden probe

News

Friend or foe?

News

Technology

The Web: it's criminal

News

Top brass

News

Technology

Hang the DJ

News

Technology

Health farm

News

Technology

Talking pictures

News

Here's health

News

Cure that killed

News

Naturally toxic

News

Catalogue of errors

News

Flu drug setback

News

Crash landing

News

Environment

Baboon virus

News

Terminator terminated

News

Bug custard

News

Schoolkid blunder brought down Mars probe

News

Asking for trouble

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.

The politics of water

PERVERSE though it may seem, the Australian government is under fire for failing to adopt the United Nations (UN) Convention to Combat Desertification. We are talking about the same Australia which has the lowest average rainfall and the most irregular precipitation of any inhabited continent, a country where drought is a word in regular use. …

Opinion

Humans

Westminster diary

Opinion

Your number's up

Opinion

Baron, it's for you

Opinion

Body politics

Opinion

Critical failure

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.

Weather warning

SOME guys have all the luck. Two years ago Dan Schrag was in Indonesia diving for fun when he made his discovery. "We had a glorious day," he says. "After a morning dive when we saw a huge school of barracuda, we stopped for lunch. I took a walk down the beach, behind the mangrove …

Features

Desert rave

Features

Back from the dead

Features

Tune in turn off

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.

Think on this

From "AI" to "X-Bar theory", by way of "Creativity", "Intelligence" and just a hint of "Magic", The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences will be invaluable for anyone wanting to know more about knowledge. Editors Robert Wilson and Frank Keil guide us through 471 authoritative, well-referenced articles by researchers whose names are synonymous with their …

Books & Arts

The main attraction

Books & Arts

Heavy stuff

Books & Arts

Development's king

Books & Arts

Technology

Cybernauts

Books & Arts

from Melbourne

Books & Arts

Whole Earth catalogue

Books & Arts

Houses of What?

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

FEEDBACK'S favourite awards, the Ig Nobel Prizes, were handed out on 30 September at Harvard University. The awards are given each year by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research for achievements that "cannot or should not be reproduced". HAVING spent long hours in deep and soggy contemplation of the problem, Feedback was delighted …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word