Issue 2237 | Magazine cover date: 6 May 2000 | New Scientist

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6 May 2000

Issue 2237

New Scientist issue 2237 cover

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On the cover

Features

The winter palace

News

Mass deception

Opinion

Making genes fit

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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 winter palace

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.

Material world

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.

Atomic logic

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.

Ordinary miracles

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.

Mass deception

THE blister beetle Meloe franciscanus of the Mojave Desert has evolved an extraordinary trick. Its parasitic larvae survive by feeding on the eggs and food of solitary bees. But to get into the bees' nests, hundreds of newly hatched larvae form clumps that resemble female bees in shape, colour and possibly even smell. When an …

News

This side for seas

News

Leap forward

News

Cold light

News

Amazon menagerie

News

Gene food tests

News

Gesundheit!

News

Moonshine

News

Out of the jungle

News

A flashy way to forecast when a twister's due

News

Virtual violence makes people turn nasty

News

Bone relief

News

Genetic bounty

News

Flat as a pancake

News

Nest-building angst turns pigs into killers

News

The magic number

News

Technology

The secret's out

News

Slick disaster of the biggest supertankers

News

That's cool

News

Technology

On the air

News

Technology

Signal scrambler

News

Technology

Frozen out

News

Before their time

News

Legging it to the nearest female

News

No place like home

News

Forever young

News

We're not safe yet

News

Breast's behest

News

Knowing little noses

News

Earth

Every cloud has a silver lining

News

Ticket to ride

News

Sleep easy

News

Elastic droids

News

Fast explorer

News

Earth

Don't blame the Sun

News

Earth

Forests turn to dust

News

Swill your vitamins

News

Getting a better fix

News

Earth

Under the ice

News

Mobile battles

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.

Making genes fit

REGULATING gene technology is a hot issue on both sides of the Tasman. New Zealand has just launched a Royal Commission into the area, with the government calling for a one-year moratorium on release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) while it is in progress. And in Australia, the approach proposed by the Federal government has …

Opinion

Humans

Westminster diary

Opinion

We can do better than this . . .

Opinion

Short on vision

Opinion

Handle with care!

Opinion

Rallying point

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 winter palace

ICE PALACES are the stuff of legend. For more than two centuries, Russia and then North America witnessed a succession of these creations, each more elaborate and preposterous than the one before. They were short-lived, glittering places of wonder. One of the earliest was built in 1740 on the whim of a Russian empress, who …

Features

Material world

Features

Atomic logic

Features

Ordinary miracles

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.

Mental epidemics

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown, £14.99, ISBN 0316648523 WANT to change the world? Find out how in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. He has "the rules" for engineering social epidemics. You'll see how to turn an idea, product or practice into a virulent mind virus that will sweep through society to become …

Books & Arts

Greened off

Books & Arts

Wild things

Books & Arts

Only collect

Books & Arts

Soft options

Books & Arts

Bestsellers from Oxford

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

In or out? Question : Why do some people have "innie" belly buttons while others have "outties"? Answer : I'm sorry to say this, but whether your navel is an "innie" or an "outtie" is the result not of anything as interesting as genetics or womb conditions but of the more prosaic practice of tying …

Regulars

Feedback

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word