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This week's magazine

19 May 2001

Issue 2291

New Scientist issue 2291 cover
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On the cover

Features

Rough justice

News

The big yam is back

Opinion

Westminster Diary
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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.

Rough justice

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.

Mars attracts!

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.

Spellbound

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.

Buzzing around

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.

Time twister

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.

The big yam is back

A RARE variety of the world's largest vegetable has been rediscovered in the wild after 40 years. Scientists feared that the elephant's foot—a variety of wild yam—had become extinct in its only habitat, the Northern Cape plateau of South Africa. Called elephant's foot because of its huge edible tuber that can weigh up to 300 …

News

Gran's gin is tonic

News

Mellow maths

News

Sucking up the clues

News

Coldplay

News

Technology

True grit

News

Technology

Little sweetener

News

Technology

Precious pressure

News

Cut to the chase

News

New body parts at the stroke of a laser pen

News

All roads lead back to Africa

News

Finnish sex gods

News

Slow and luminous

News

Confronting mercury

News

Silent screen

News

Road sage

News

Drink and surf

News

Winging it

News

Poisonous legacy

News

A drop in the ocean

News

Horse killer

News

The King lives!

News

Bees lock up invaders and throw away the key

News

The living dead

News

Radio beam pierces Venus's cloudy veil

News

Written in blood

News

You can't turn back the clock

News

It spots bugs in burgers faster than you can buy them

News

Life

The awful truth

News

Dead in the water

News

Are they aliens or just humble earthlings?

News

Exploding the myth

News

Star blows bubble

News

Childhood's end

News

Iraqi wetlands face total destruction

News

They're everywhere

News

An end to division

News

Lose them or terrorists could use them

News

Shotgun wedding

News

A fine kettle of fish

News

DNA heist?

News

Nuclear warning

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.

Westminster Diary

THERE has been uproar in the press about the closure and lay-offs at Motorola's Scottish factory in Bathgate. A total of 3200 people have lost their job at the factory that opened 11 years ago. The lay-offs are a catastrophe for the small number of older skilled staff, some of whom have now been served …

Opinion

I'LL BE BACK

Opinion

HEAVENLY VIEWS UP THERE

Opinion

Secret slavery

Opinion

Child's play

Opinion

Water wars

Opinion

Making sense of an infinity of Elvises

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.

Rough justice

Images of the thylacine are a dime a dozen in Tasmania. Its likeness graces everything from beer bottles to greetings cards. But this watercolour and pencil sketch, now owned by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart, is almost as race as alleged sightings of the thylacine itself. It was painted in 1833 by …

Features

Mars attracts!

Features

Spellbound

Features

Buzzing around

Features

Time twister

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.

Unearthing the past

EVER found a piece of old pottery in a field and wondered who used it, what they did with it and how long ago that was? There is a way to find out. Archaeology , the study of the human past, centres on material culture —the physical structures and objects ( artefacts )—that people have …

Inside Science

Stan and the volcano

Books & Arts

Bestsellers

Books & Arts

LET THE SUN SHINE IN

Books & Arts

LIFE: A TOUR GUIDE

Books & Arts

DON'T RIP IT UP AND START AGAIN

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

THOSE who find themselves being shot at by the US military will no doubt be consoled by the news that the bullets are environmentally friendly ones. According to the Associated Press, the army's latest multimillion-dollar project is the development of "green ammunition". Made from tungsten composite rather than lead, the ammunition is intended to reduce …

Regulars

The Last Word

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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