It's the coolest A CLOUD of lithium atoms has broken the record for the coolest atomic gas on Earth. By chilling the atoms to less than a quarter of a millionth of a degree above absolute zero, scientists have seen the gas develop "Fermi pressure"—a strange quantum effect that stops superdense stars collapsing completely. Fermi pressure only occurs … News
The smart card deal A UNIQUE smart card technology, developed but never applied in Australia, is about to make its commercial debut in China. Earlier this month a Brisbane company won a A$17 million contract to supply an identification system based on the technology to one of China's largest insurance companies. If the system is a success, eGlobal Holdings … Opinion
Walk like an Egyptian A false toe will not stir the passions. Like a wooden leg or a glass eye, it's more likely to excite mirth than admiration. It might prompt curiosity, but hardly serious intellectual attention. Unless, of course, it's 3000 years old and was once attached to the foot of some long-forgotten but high-ranking Egyptian. A toe … Features
Making Babies On Fertile Ground: A natural history of human reproduction by Peter Thorpe Ellison, Harvard University Press, £19.50, ISBN 0674004639 PETER ELLISON grips your attention from his opening contrast between a difficult birth in the central Africa that ended in the death of the baby and a successful delivery in the US that mobilised up-to-date medical … Books & Arts
Feedback WHY is a star like a telephone? Until quite recently, stars and their constellations were given names, most of them originally belonging to ancient gods or the protagonists of heroic tales. But there are too many stars, too few mythic names. So we now catalogue stars by their position in the sky. Forget name, think … Regulars