Technology Special cases The Bluetooth chips that can set up a wireless links between computers and other digital devices have found another use: tracing lost luggage in airports. Bluetags of Denmark suggests fitting the chips into a smart label for suitcases that stores the owner's itinerary and personal details (WO 01/37004). The owner activates the label on departure, … News
Living with the enemy It's after midnight. The shadowy prison is prepared. Specimen jars line the kitchen bench like cells in a corridor, waiting quietly for the inmates to arrive. The mood is sombre. I wonder: "Will the capture be successful?" I am tentative, nervous and armed. Clumsy hands guarded by gardening gloves carry tweezers almost half my body … Opinion
The case of the four-armed corpse Four thousand years ago, the well dressed Egyptian mummy went to the tomb decked out in all manner of jewels-not for decoration but as insurance. If you wanted a full and happy afterlife, then you needed a whole and well preserved body and a plentiful supply of those luxuries you enjoyed during your earthly existence. … Features
THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the making of the modern world by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0071350071, $22.95 FRENCH chemist Claude Louis Berthollet turned the world's sheets from dull grey to sparkling white in 1785 when he demonstrated that chlorine bleaches fabric. Before that, it took six months to bleach a piece of … Books & Arts
The Last Word Shorelines Question : Why do waves travel towards a shore no matter which way the wind blows? Does this mean that there is a place in the centre of the ocean where the water is still? Answer : Shorelines are not all concentric, so if there were some still-water source of waves, it would not … Regulars