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This week's magazine

19 August 2000

Issue 2252

New Scientist issue 2252 cover
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On the cover

Features

Pot of gold

News

Octopussy isn't choosy

Opinion

Driving us to drink?
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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.

Pot of gold

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 enemy within

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.

Radio Blast

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.

One small step for fish, one giant leap for us

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

That's the way the money goes

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.

Octopussy isn't choosy

THE deadly blue-ringed octopuses of Octopussy fame aren't very discriminating when it comes to certain pursuits. The males try to mate with either sex, say Mary Cheng and Roy Caldwell of the University of California at Berkeley. However, encounters between males do not last as long as those involving a female, and no sperm appears …

News

Triumph for diversity

News

Deep breather

News

Rainy old Med

News

Past blast

News

Fish bite back

News

Technology

Blazing trails

News

Multiple choice

News

Cheer up

News

All rounder

News

Sniffing out fakes

News

See no evil, speak no evil

News

Flight from reality

News

Old cells, new tricks

News

Making more of yourself

News

Voice from the grave

News

Technology

Safer tanks

News

Technology

Not so speedy now

News

Highly cultured

News

Back to the source

News

Everything you ever wanted to know about stem cells

News

Technology

Antipollutant on a plate

News

Concorde grounded

News

Clusters are go

News

Clean burn

News

Listen up

News

Knockout blow

News

Factory of life gives up its secrets

News

Shuttle to test space junk broom

News

Life

Wild things

News

Tasteless

News

Life

The naked chef

News

Life

Play gets pandas in the mood

News

Life

Baby snatchers

News

Life

Victory turns mice into men

News

It's just business, says Roslin

News

Destination Mir

News

Put it to the vote

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.

Driving us to drink?

AUSTRALIAN drinking water standards are arbitrary and not well enforced, according to a recent report by the Productivity Commission. Every one of us drinks water and almost all are at the mercy of a monopoly supplier who decides just how pure our water will be. So it is hard to understand why the report, entitled …

Opinion

Westminster Diary

Opinion

Wilderness days

Opinion

Imagine that

Opinion

It's the law

Opinion

About time

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.

Pot of gold

What's a smashed and burnt piece of pot doing in the company of the world's most ancient gold coins? This fragment of coarse, gritty earthenware, on display in the British Museum's coins and medals room, is more valuable than the fabulous golden treasures. It may be a bit of old rubbish retrieved from a dump …

Features

The enemy within

Features

Radio Blast

Features

One small step for fish, one giant leap for us

Features

Life

That's the way the money goes

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.

Whole Earth book

Geologists, says John McPhee, are like dermatologists: "They crowd around like fleas on the world's tough hide, exploring every wrinkle and crease, and try to figure out what makes the animal move." He has, you'll agree, a way with words. In Annals of the Former World, now a thumping 696-page paperback, he turns his travels …

Books & Arts

In close up

Books & Arts

Elemental us

Books & Arts

Little books

Books & Arts

Fieldwork blues

Books & Arts

Yuck by the yard

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

TRAINS in Britain may be halted because of leaves on the track or the wrong kind of snow, but surely nothing like that could interrupt the clockwork precision of Japanese railways, could it? Well, yes, it could. According to a report in the Yomiuri newspaper, an express train north of Tokyo was brought to a …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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