Subscribe now

This week's magazine

3 June 2000

Issue 2241

New Scientist issue 2241 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
Subscribe
Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

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.

We can work it out

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.

Rhythm and blues

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.

So you want to be an expert

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.

Before the big bang

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.

A town like Uruk

THE first urban settlements in the Middle East were thought to have been built by the Sumerian civilisation of southern Mesopotamia more than 5000 years ago. Now, it seems, another civilisation was enjoying city life around the same time, according to finds in north-eastern Syria. Clemens Reichel, an archaeologist at the University of Chicago's Oriental …

News

Going back to nature down on the farm

News

Second sight

News

Early risers

News

Melanoma vaccine

News

Back to the lab

News

The body that never was

News

California calls in the dust detectives

News

Bees turn up the heat on invaders

News

Accelerated decay

News

Bury your dead

News

Virus on the wing

News

The way it was

News

Vanishing trick

News

Hugely corny

News

Caught red-handed

News

Keeping tags on it

News

Travel writing

News

Droids are cooking

News

Reversal of fortune

News

Technology

Pennies for your thoughts

News

Sweet symphony

News

Listen up

News

Thumbs up for nettles

News

Grow old with mum and dad

News

Electric muscles up the pace

News

Look at it this way

News

Making waves

News

Technology

Choose who's talking

News

In excess

News

Stop the bleeding

News

Out of harm's way

News

Cracking up

News

Technology

Explosive clean-up

News

Technology

Way to glow

News

Jumping genes

News

Leatherbacks in trouble

News

Equal emissions

News

Deadly slow

News

Raising a stink

News

Rockets or rainforest

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.

Turn back the pollen clock

ONE day last fall I was photographing some ground cover in my neighbourhood, carefully staying on the public sidewalk. The groundsel tree Baccharis was growing all over the place. A gentleman came out of his front door. "What in the world could be worth photographing in my front yard?" he asked. He had a point. …

Opinion

Great start, now for a change

Opinion

Westminster Diary

Opinion

Science Needs You

Opinion

Life

Scary monsters super creeps

Opinion

Hold that sneeze

Opinion

When the wind blows

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.

We can work it out

ON GOOD FRIDAY two years ago, an event took place in Northern Ireland that many thought they would never live to see. After months of negotiation, years of conflict and centuries of mistrust, the various warring parties finally agreed on a power-sharing accord to bring peace to that troubled province. More than thirty years of …

Features

Rhythm and blues

Features

So you want to be an expert

Features

Before the big bang

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.

Wet and wild

Go just three days without water, and your body is in serious trouble. We need the stuff, and not just for physical sustenance. Fresh water provides us with "metaphor, power and enchantment", as The River's Voice, a collection of more than 180 poems from both sides of the Atlantic, so beautifully reminds us. Chosen by …

Books & Arts

We do voodoo far too well

Books & Arts

Bestsellers from Oxford

Books & Arts

Whip up a froth

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

OUR favourite report is out again—the Department of Trade and Industry's Home Accident Surveillance System (based on 1998 data). It gives figures for the causes of domestic accidents reported in admissions to a selected group of British hospitals, and then gives extrapolated estimates for the country as a whole. If you remember our item on …

Regulars

The Last Word

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop