Issue 2244 | Magazine cover date: 24 June 2000 | New Scientist

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24 June 2000

Issue 2244

New Scientist issue 2244 cover

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On the cover

Features

The great escape

News

Bonne santé

Opinion

An alien intelligence

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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 great escape

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.

Spin doctors

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.

Fingered

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.

Life

She knows what she wants

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.

Global brain

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.

Bonne santé

People in Mediterranean countries enjoy better healthcare than anywhere else in the world, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO has carried out a global assessment of how well governments care for their sick, and published it this week as part of its World Health Report. The assessment highlights the failure of other industrialised …

News

Taking sides

News

Better stay awake

News

Stills to CD

News

Welcome to the Undernet

News

Be a director on DVD

News

Lunar power

News

Parallel antics

News

Milky Way's sweet centre

News

Life after death

News

Technology

Slithery computer

News

Technology

Self-cleaning carpet

News

Technology

Cut the spaghetti

News

Not so majestic

News

Wired like a human

News

Disclaimer denied

News

Spot the louse

News

Engines cast to last

News

In a flap

News

Dirty tricks

News

Look before it leaps

News

Easier listening

News

Polluting rights

News

Veggie croc

News

Killer feast

News

High-octane fuel

News

Hic to the beat

News

Money trouble at the bank

News

As they sow . . .

News

Fading aroma

News

Cool running

News

One in the eye for healing

News

Big stretch

News

The splice of life

News

Scrubbed from the world's menu

News

Death knell for asbestos

News

Looking for a miracle

News

Technology

Stunning developments

News

Last orders for the breweries

News

New kid on the block

News

Ear-splitting sonar

News

Put that light out

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.

An alien intelligence

AS SCREEN villains go, you won't find any more sinister than a dark-hearted computer with a mind of its own. From the self-aware defence computers that enslaved the human race in the 1960s sci-fi classic The Forbin Project to the anti-heroes of the Terminator movies, intelligent machines are undoubtedly things to be wary of. So …

Opinion

From fridge door to touch-screen

Opinion

Humans

Washington diary

Opinion

Over used and over here

Opinion

Give us the proof

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 great escape

If looks are anything to go by, then this massive 18th-century lock should inspire plenty of confindence. One of only three of its type, it has also inspired a local legend. This is the lock that Harry Houdini, the world-famous escapologist, could'nt pick, or so the story goes. Made by locksmith William Fenton in the …

Features

Spin doctors

Features

Fingered

Features

Life

She knows what she wants

Features

Global brain

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.

Bestsellers from San Francisco

A Passion for DNA by James Watson, Cold Spring Harbor Lab Press Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel, Walker A Darwinian Left by Peter Singer, Yale University Press Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry, Counterpoint Lying Stones of Marrakech by Stephen J. Gould, Harmony Books Genes, People, and Languages by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, North Point Press …

Books & Arts

Physics

Swonderful, smarvellous

Books & Arts

Nasty kid

Books & Arts

Big brother watches...

Books & Arts

...and sister fights back

Books & Arts

Heat strokes

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 MANY forays into the field of nominative determinism have always focused on surnames. James Bruning, a psychologist at Ohio University, has dedicated 20 years to the study of first names. His work suggests that when people seek employment, the name really can determine the job. For his latest study, published in The Journal of …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word