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This week's magazine

7 December 2002

Issue 2372

New Scientist issue 2372 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.

Humans

Mother's little helpers

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.

Made on 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.

Reluctant 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.

Into the abyss

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.

To catch a rising star

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.

Laser-guided neurons grow towards the light

USING a weak laser beam to guide nerve cells could help build artificial neural networks. These could be used for testing drugs to combat brain diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The technique also brings the prospect of regrowing damaged nerves a step closer. It could allow surgeons to reconnect nerve fibres damaged in an …

News

The best excuse yet for not doing the dishes

News

Tied in knots

News

In the genes

News

Miniature memory

News

Sleep safe

News

What junk is for

News

Technology

Beads give the game away

News

Technology

Safeguarding secrets

News

Hot-wired piano hits all the right notes

News

We hear that…

News

Earth's ancient heat wave gives a taste of things to come

News

Can tough little bugs speed up computing?

News

Dispatches

News

Soundbites

News

Tainted tube wells pour poison onto food crops

News

TV homeopathy trial was 'flawed'

News

Environment

News

Life

Of mice and men

News

Technology

Your car is ready now

News

Now we can soak up the rainbow

News

Bread to blame for plague of pimples

News

Fast action would have saved millions

News

Can software that copies protected DVDs be legal?

News

Tall tales from anglers could wipe out fish

News

Gas planets grown in next to no time

News

Simple experiment gives birth to first new species created in the lab

News

Will physics crack the market?

News

Fresh evidence on Bhopal disaster

News

Saving the sounds of our distant past

News

US fury at EU rules

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.

Humans

Westminster diary

WIDE public outcry has greeted the recent decline of Britain's once plentiful house sparrows and starlings. Now reports are coming in of young birds unable to fly and instead walking around in tight circles, doing somersaults and twisting their heads in a bizarre fashion (New Scientist, 31 August, p 5) . What is happening? I …

Opinion

The word knismesis

Opinion

Castles of air?

Opinion

Pray for a soft landing

Opinion

The mouse within

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.

Humans

Mother's little helpers

WHAT is it about humans that makes us such late developers? Chimps are ready to reproduce by the age of eight. Gorillas are all grown up at six. Yet human childhood lasts twice as long as it should do for an ape of our size and rate of growth. We spend more time as children …

Features

Made on Earth

Features

Reluctant heroes

Features

Into the abyss

Features

To catch a rising star

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.

Sorely missed

Copies of Lingua Franca used to be hard to pin down in New Scientist's offices: the first person to catch sight of this "witty review of academic life" would hoard it until they'd had time to enjoy it. When the magazine closed last year, its spirit lingered: people still searched for it on the desk …

Books & Arts

Light speed

Books & Arts

The new untouchables

Books & Arts

Digging the deceased

Books & Arts

If only I had a brain

Books & Arts

Paint the city green

Books & Arts

Einstein's rules

Books & Arts

Mix with pleasure

Books & Arts

If you can't beat them…

Books & Arts

Rattling gates

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

OREGON Scientific sells an electronic weather station with indoor and outdoor sensors. Reader Robert Cailliau was tickled to discover among its many listed features: "Predicts the weather forecast". Feedback prognosticates an interdisciplinary conference of meteorologists and linguists to decide whether this is easier than predicting the weather itself. We bet it didn't predict that weather …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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