Issue 2212 | Magazine cover date: 13 November 1999 | New Scientist

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13 November 1999

Issue 2212

New Scientist issue 2212 cover

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On the cover

Features

The last supper

News

Hurricane of rock

Westminster diary

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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.

The last supper

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 famished road

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.

A week beneath the waves

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.

Well connected

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.

Hurricane of rock

A SWIRLING vortex of molten rock has been found 3000 kilometres beneath the North Pole. The Earth's magnetic field is thought to be generated by circulation in its molten outer core. By looking at historical measurements of the magnetic field, geophysicists Peter Olson and Jonathan Aurnou of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, traced a …

News

Giant browser

News

Perilous particles

News

An unlikely tail

News

Sun and schizophrenia

News

Smog suits

News

IVF deaths

News

GM deal

News

Jog your memory . . . go for a long run

News

Crunch time for cancer

News

God on their side

News

Big breakfast

News

Lone molecule shrinks mighty memory

News

Sticking point

News

The colour of money

News

Leave your mark

News

Meaty matters

News

Films for free

News

Your good health . . .

News

How termite head-bangers outwit a fungus

News

Too little, too late

News

Speedy sorting

News

Earth

Dirty dealing

News

Earth

US gives Kyoto the cold shoulder

News

No sweat

News

The road ahead

News

Who needs to know?

News

Talking spam

News

Words and pictures

News

Satellite link-up

News

Under pressure

News

Hidden legacy

News

A signal improvement

News

In the works

News

Vindicated

News

Widening the net

News

Fewer HIV babies

News

Spring-loaded spies

News

Struggling crops can now get that extra help

News

Keeping it clean

News

Technology

Microwave motor

News

Technology

It's a wrap

News

Technology

Hot jacket

News

Clever mums

News

Dead and gone

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.

Humans

Westminster diary

BIOMASS—plant matter—is hugely important as an energy source these days, as the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering recognise in their joint report, Nuclear Energy—the Future Climate (www.raeng.org.uk/state/pubs/nuclearst.html). Biomass already supplies 14 per cent of the world's energy needs—mainly in developing countries. However, the report suggests that biomass could yet meet 5 per …

Opinion

Farming's hidden costs

Opinion

Talking with dinos

Opinion

Without consent

Opinion

The human touch

Opinion

Land of the free

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 last supper

PLANETS are tiny, insignificant things compared with their parent stars—little more than moths fluttering around the stellar camp fire. You might think that they could have no discernible effect on their stars and, until recently, astronomers would have agreed with you. But it is becoming clear that when old stars grow huge enough to swallow …

Features

The famished road

Features

A week beneath the waves

Features

Well connected

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.

Roots of history

HUMAN life often seems a frenetic business, all booming population and burgeoning technology. Where, amid all this chaos, do we place plants? In some parts of the world, where most of the people must wrest their living from the soil, the importance of plants for food, clothing and shelter is still recognised as paramount. It's …

Inside Science

Going, going . . .

Books & Arts

It's a trap

Books & Arts

Bestsellers from Brussels

Books & Arts

Blame me

Books & Arts

Face off

Books & Arts

Deep impact

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.

The Last Word

Whiz-bang Question : On Friday 13 August 1999, between 10 and 11 at night, I was in a campsite near the Ammersee in Bavaria when a bright orange-red glowing object passed overhead. Several people saw it. It was silent, bright enough to be seen after it went behind trees, and seemed to have a very …

Regulars

Feedback

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word