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This week's magazine

11 December 1999

Issue 2216

New Scientist issue 2216 cover
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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 bigger picture

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.

Sssss is for danger

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.

Driven by sound

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.

Warning! Strange behaviour

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.

Storm warning

This year's North Atlantic hurricane season was the fiercest on record, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Five storms reached category 4, with air pressure dropping below 944 millibars and winds exceeding 211 kilometres per hour. Three blew out to sea, and two weakened before hitting land. This continues a reported shift toward …

News

Embryonic row

News

Saving the circle

News

The fungus eaters

News

Quick test keeps tabs on sex-change danger

News

Meet the menagerie in your mouth

News

Teenage tyrant

News

Moving mountain

News

Prickly flu

News

Singularly sexed

News

Back to nature

News

Technology

Rattling Seattle

News

Cast-off kids

News

Grunt if you know what I mean...

News

Baby Bopp

News

Parkinson's clue

News

Impasse

News

Banned beef returns despite lack of evidence

News

Healthy home

News

Pollution keeps falling on their heads

News

The acid test

News

Picture perfect

News

Crystal fix

News

Chip stack

News

Blown away

News

Bug tracker

News

Designing a dilemma

News

Fighting blight

News

Rubber trouble

News

Technology

Acid snaps

News

Technology

Booze ruse

News

Technology

Cut the clutter

News

Under pressure

News

Getting heavy

News

IBM plans its latest smash hit

News

Earth

You don't have to burn to get too much sun

News

Earth

UN fumes, China fumigates

News

Earth

Easy way out

News

Controlling tobacco

News

Killer crystals

News

Plant makeover

News

Earth

Save our gas

News

Mini motivators

News

The nightmare continues

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

DEPLETED uranium is a radioactive heavy metal, composed almost entirely of the uranium isotope uranium-238. It is a by-product of the enrichment process that turns naturally occurring uranium, which contains uranium-235, into a fuel for nuclear power stations. As depleted uranium (DU) is cheap, plentiful and very heavy, NATO forces used it in anti-tank weapons …

Opinion

Taking a high tech road

Opinion

Growing up cleaner

Opinion

Clear cut

Opinion

Inhuman futures

Opinion

Fresh field

Opinion

The need to know

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 bigger picture

Richard Trethewey thought it would be easy to make a starchier potato. In this age of genetic engineering, he and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm, Germany, figured they just needed to insert the right gene into potato plants. And because they knew all the steps in the …

Features

Sssss is for danger

Features

Driven by sound

Features

Warning! Strange behaviour

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.

Glorious beasts

Walking with Dinosaurs by Tim Haines, BBC Worldwide, £19.99, ISBN 0563384492 TO BE accurate, this book should have been called "Walking, running, swimming and flying with reptiles". I freely admit my pedantry lacks the impact of Walking with Dinosaurs, but the also-rans—the marine, airborne and other terrestrial reptiles— deserve more credit. Impact was important to …

Books & Arts

Star performers

Books & Arts

Bomb surprise

Books & Arts

Future past

Books & Arts

The Magic Furnace by Marcus Chown

Books & Arts

Rock of ages

Books & Arts

Park life

Books & Arts

Little biters

Books & Arts

Crazy career

Books & Arts

Earth

Mass extinctions

Inside Science

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

WE SYMPATHISE with Peter Swanson, owner of a pub in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, who became concerned last month when a large Nexus Transport truck plastered with radioactive warning symbols pulled up outside. He became even more concerned when the driver jumped out and said: "Were do you want the beer, mate?" The …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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