Issue 2327 | Magazine cover date: 26 January 2002 | New Scientist

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26 January 2002

Issue 2327

New Scientist issue 2327 cover

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On the cover

Features

Pharaoh's ears

News

All dried up

Opinion

Washington diary

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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.

Pharaoh's ears

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 rainmaker

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.

No way out

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.

Zeros into heroes

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.

Sweet Nothings

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.

All dried up

A DRAMATIC global shift in the world's climate may have turned an area covered with rivers and lakes into one of the driest places on Earth. Scientists were convinced the Atacama Desert in western South America formed more than 10 million years ago when the Andes grew high enough to keep moist air out. But …

News

Feed your dog's brain

News

Double vision

News

Row, row, row your fish

News

Extreme living

News

The truth doesn't hurt

News

Technology

Spray it again, man

News

Technology

The Net's a shore thing

News

Technology

TV screen saver

News

Healthy vibes

News

Lab-in-a-football keeps out bad vibrations

News

Stealth lightning

News

Don't forget to lock up

News

Jet-propelled

News

Breaking the rules

News

Plum idea

News

Down the drain

News

Discounting sheep

News

Hop for your lives!

News

Power surge

News

Knock 'em dead with perfect timing

News

Frozen assets

News

Men of God

News

Earth

How Egypt was felled by famine - in 2180 BC

News

Bridge the world

News

Daddy's girls

News

Place your bets

News

University challenge

News

Sunken city

News

Destroyer of worlds

News

Botched botany

News

Stay of execution

News

Venter quits

News

Pass the sugar

News

Small will be beautiful in the new Afghanistan

News

Keep young and beautiful

News

Tighter meat controls

News

Boozing with the boss

News

Alchemy for beginners

News

Is this the one?

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.

Washington diary

WITH terrorism and its after-effects slowly moving out of the foreground of day-to-day affairs in Washington, George Bush is becoming fair game again, and he and his administration are providing new targets for scientists and environmentalist. His new head of NASA, Sean O'Keefe, started his term by saying the International Space Station would continue to …

Opinion

Savers of the world, unite!

Opinion

Lessons from Lorenzo

Opinion

A vaccine can't wait

Opinion

One good reason to let smallpox live

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.

Pharaoh's ears

"Three years ago, a mummy was unrolled in London, and in its hand was a small bag of Wheat. Some grains of it were sown and vegetated. Its produce has again been sown . . . and has produced an average of 38 ears or spikes for each grain sown. To be sold in packets …

Features

The rainmaker

Features

No way out

Features

Zeros into heroes

Features

Sweet Nothings

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.

Absolute squash

Cabbages and Kings by Jonathan Roberts, HarperCollins, £18.99, ISBN 0002202077 IT WAS an easy mistake to make. Intent on establishing a silk industry in Britain, James I ordained that mulberry trees be made available. Unfortunately, he ordered the black variety, rather than the white on which the silkworm grows. James never established sericulture, but instead …

Books & Arts

Deep secrets

Books & Arts

who's reading what

Books & Arts

Preserved for posterity

Books & Arts

Cross-discipline dressing

Books & Arts

The collector

Books & Arts

Tune in the Universe! by Paul Shuch

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

THERE CAN be an upside to infection with a computer virus. A colleague of Feedback's – we'll call her Jenny to spare her blushes – discovered this recently when her computer was infected with an e-mail worm. Most e-mail worms wend their way into your system through security loopholes in your e-mail program, most commonly …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word