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This week's magazine

18 May 2002

Issue 2343

New Scientist issue 2343 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.

Hell with a harpoon

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.

Earth

Thought for food

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.

It came from planet Earth

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.

Technology

Mini microwave oven

The trend for ever tinier gadgets and appliances has now hit microwave manufacturers. Market-leader Samsung of South Korea says it will be possible to make them as small as a four-slice toaster. That hasn't been possible until now because the step-up transformer that delivers the several kilovolts needed for the magnetron has had to be …

News

Heat-seeking fish holiday in Cornwall

News

End of evolution

News

Tracking HIV

News

Clever milk

News

Leaves or cornflakes?

News

Listen to the dark side

News

Technology

Beam her up

News

Technology

Can't steal this disc

News

Technology

Zoom in on football

News

The nanny channel

News

Blistering bytes

News

Instant history

News

Once more with feeling

News

Will the dripless teapot find fans down under?

News

Ink reveals the origin of Galileo's heavyweight idea

News

Water war

News

Grow your own

News

Time to relax BSE rules?

News

Storm in a teacup

News

A dog called Jacksy

News

Fertility pump

News

Lifelike lips licked

News

Creepy-crawly

News

Alien life gets more and more probable every day

News

Canada plays dirty

News

Squeezed out

News

Rumble bungle

News

Flushing out Alzheimer's

News

Inside view

News

Stealth lava is master of disguise

News

Lot…in…space

News

AIDS-polio link smashed

News

Big berg breaks off

News

Out of your head

News

Made in the USA

News

Splitting image

News

Rise above it

News

Mini-mouse points the way to mega-cow

News

Footing the bill

News

Team termite

News

Say no tostem cell patents

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

IN ALL the talk about funding Britain's National Health Service, one self-evident point invariably gets pushed aside. This is that our expectations of what it should be doing for us have risen inexorably. When I became an MP in 1962, constituents used to ask me: "Is there any chance that my relative X could get …

Opinion

Sexperts gag at kebab korrelation

Opinion

It's no laughing matter

Opinion

Much ado about nothing

Opinion

Trotter towers

Opinion

Beyond organics

Opinion

How many lawyers does it take …

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.

Hell with a harpoon

WHEN William Scoresby sailed home to Whitby in the autumn of 1792, after some six months at sea, the blubber boilers on the quayside couldn't believe their luck. They were waiting to turn his precious cargo into candles and lubricants, and found he had in his hold the remains of 18 bowhead whales. It was …

Features

Earth

Thought for food

Features

It came from planet Earth

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.

Acid drops

FIFTY YEARS AGO, on 5 December 1952, Londoners received a rude awakening. They opened their curtains to find a choking dark cloud hanging over their city: a corrosive cocktail of fog mixed with smoke and gas from domestic fires and power stations. By a quirk of the weather the smog stayed put for the next …

Inside Science

Narrative drive

Books & Arts

Bestsellers

Books & Arts

Liberty to evolve

Books & Arts

The shape we're in

Books & Arts

Leaving paisley park

Books & Arts

The Future of Spacetime by Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris and Alan Lightman

Books & Arts

Rock around the Sun

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

JUST WHAT the archaeologist ordered: thousands of randomly buried tablets, each with a message in one of seven languages. Nearby, there's a huge roofless granite structure with words inscribed on it, surrounded by two circles of 20-tonne megaliths. You can be sure that whoever excavates this site isn't going to stop at the first tablet, …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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