Issue 2346 | Magazine cover date: 8 June 2002 | New Scientist

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8 June 2002

Issue 2346

New Scientist issue 2346 cover

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On the cover

Time traveller

News

Saved by spiders

Opinion

Westminster 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.

Technology

Time traveller

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.

Invasion Earth!

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.

Red devils

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.

Technology

Quantum superbrains

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.

Life 2.0

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.

Saved by spiders

DON'T brush away those cobwebs, especially if you suspect pollution may be affecting your health. Certain spiders' webs turn out to be so good at trapping fine particles from the air that they make ideal detectors for toxic pollutants such as heavy metals and dioxins. Grant Hose, an eco-toxicologist with the New South Wales Environment …

News

Technology

That takes the biscuit

News

Technology

Proof of passion

News

Technology

Big-headed beer

News

Hot stuff

News

What's that noise?

News

Ticket to surf

News

Jumping map flash is a gas

News

Whip crack away!

News

Penguins on patrol

News

Mooning around

News

Of mice and men

News

Life

Food glorious food

News

Why so blue?

News

The sky at night

News

Violent milky way eats star clusters for breakfast

News

It's madness

News

By the look in your eye

News

Pulp fiction?

News

Watch out for the tourists

News

The wet planet

News

Someone to watch over us

News

Record breaker

News

Death of a treaty

News

Fish out the politicians

News

Duped by drugs

News

No pain, no gain?

News

Moby dick's secret weapon

News

Monumental shapes

News

Elixir of youth

News

Galapagos slick

News

Now it's men's turn

News

Return of Thalidomide

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

"HOSPITALS QUIETLY KEPT CHILDREN'S ORGANS" was one of the milder newspaper headings at the time. Given the events that have unfolded in Britain's National Health Service in recent years, few doctors are now likely to risk the wrath of parents and the tabloid press by stockpiling body parts for medical research or teaching doctors, in …

Opinion

Can science be directed?

Opinion

A fish called goner

Opinion

Where's the sparkle?

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.

Technology

Time traveller

When the clerk at the Board of Longitude in London saw Thomas Earnshaw's bill, he took a deep breath and totted up the figures carefully. For one regulator clock, £89 5s. A wooden stand and packing case, another £43. Add one pocket chronometer, a "journeyman clock" and some repairs to a "larum clock" and the …

Features

Invasion Earth!

Features

Red devils

Features

Technology

Quantum superbrains

Features

Life 2.0

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.

Aliens are among us

A Plague of Rats and Rubbervines by Yvonne Baskin, Island Press (distributed in Britain by Eurospan (fax +44 (0)207 379 0609)), $25, ISBN 1559638761 STAR THISTLE and cheatgrass have taken over millions of hectares of American rangeland; avian malaria has wiped out much of the bird life of Hawaii; and comb jellies clog the Black …

Books & Arts

By any other name …

Books & Arts

Doctor strange

Books & Arts

World apart

Books & Arts

Magnetic attraction

Books & Arts

What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, people and their genes by Jonathan Marks

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Regulars

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Feedback

THERE isn't much to do in Newfoundland in winter, now the cod have been fished to oblivion. One pastime is to see what you can catch through holes in the ice; pneumonia doesn't count. Errol Squires thought he'd won one such contest in St John's this winter, when he reeled in an eel that weighed …

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Regulars

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The last word