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This week's magazine

27 April 2002

Issue 2340

New Scientist issue 2340 cover
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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.

The hollow universe

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.

Low sperm count torpedoes whalers' claims

THE first independent count of sperm whales suggests their plight is more desperate than we thought, with only 360,000 left. Estimates from the early 1980s put world numbers at 1.5 to 2 million, but they were based on commercial catches. "They didn't make sense to those of us out studying the whales," says Hal Whitehead …

News

Our thuggish cousins

News

Trashy stowaways

News

Frankenstein's ice

News

Life

Look at me!

News

Landmine scanner

News

Privatising nature?

News

Squishy mobiles add a buzz to your calls

News

I used to be undecided…

News

Fish in your veins

News

Wavelength watermarks

News

Click on the shop window

News

Ready to roll

News

Teenager shows the world how to recycle plastic

News

Bleach bots

News

Technology

Blast that spider

News

Technology

The car that recognises you

News

Technology

Colour test saves eyesight

News

Don't give a little, give a lot

News

Balls to Galileo

News

Go for it, baby

News

Lost generation

News

Family treat

News

Don't panic

News

Big catch

News

China gets wired

News

Off with their heads

News

Good clean competition

News

Cells without heartache

News

By Jove!

News

Astronauts get it in the eye

News

Precision passing

News

Porn sites' future may be sealed with a .xxx

News

Womb-mate trouble

News

Don't bank on web safety

News

Defence of the realm

News

Australia pushes for IVF ban

News

Space junk survey

News

Reprieve for wildlife refuge

News

Health

Organs to order

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.

What is 'natural'?

HOLDEN: I have a deep fear of reductionism and the idea that we can improve on nature with technical fixes without knowing the consequences. We are part of nature, and with that relationship should go respect, humility, and above all responsibility. In the past we've waited for evidence of harm before we've acted. That is …

Opinion

Washington diary

Opinion

The science of give and take

Opinion

Land and freedom

Opinion

Globally local

Opinion

Time to rethink everything

Opinion

The chips are down

Opinion

No double standards

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.

The hollow universe

This idea is disturbing and confusing, even to the experts, but they can't shake it off. It seems to be an inevitable result of mixing some of the dominant strands of modern physics—gravity, quantum theory and thermodynamics. And it also seems to be vitally important—even though scientists cannot agree what it means. Many physicists think …

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.

Kirk with a trowel

Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and science fiction edited by Miles Russell, Oxbow, £18, ISBN 1842170635 READING this entertaining, if at times annoying, collection of papers I was reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that if a scientist can imagine a future technology, it will happen. If, as several authors argue here, archaeology and …

Books & Arts

Recipe for a mouse

Books & Arts

Making waves

Books & Arts

Burn those books

Books & Arts

Dogs of science

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

ARE DRUGS companies making us think diseases are more common and more serious than they really are? A senior executive quoted in the British Medical Journal believes so—and he says it's the marketing people who are responsible. Fred Nadjarian, managing director of Roche Australia, says: "The marketing people always beat these things up." He gives …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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