Technology A word from our sponsor Companies continue to take advantage of changes in the law which let them patent business techniques rather than physical inventions. Chip maker Intel is claiming two new ways to make money from Internet radio (WO 0209088) by tailoring the adverts to match the listener. Before you can listen to the free music, you have to … News
Washington diary JANUS, you'll remember, was the god with two faces, one looking forwards and the other looking back. And he seems to have had a bad influence on scientists, scientific societies and federal science agencies, when it comes to promoting participation among women and minorities in science. The forward-looking face has led to the creation of … Opinion
Dirty bomb THE MOST notorious places are often the most dismal. Aldermaston, the secretive citadel that gave Britain its nuclear weapons, is not a sight to lift the heart. As far as the eye can see there are drab buildings and bunkers, set in a sea of mud and grass. A huge, ancient heating pipe snakes around … Features
Evolution of the human condition Sense and Nonsense by Kevin Laland and Gillian Brown, Oxford University Press, £16.95, ISBN 0198508840 IN 1975 a book changed the landscape of the social and biological sciences. Edward O. Wilson's mammoth 697-page Sociobiology: A new synthesis lumbered off the press at Harvard University and caused a sensation. Wilson's audacious final chapter proposed that natural … Books & Arts
Feedback A FEW years ago, some friends entrusted Feedback with a pool of money to bet on a horse in the Grand National. We accidentally backed the wrong horse, but luckily it came first, instead of the one our friends had chosen. That narrow shave made us suspicious of gambling. After all, in the long run … Regulars