Subscribe now

This week's magazine

15 February 2003

Issue 2382

New Scientist issue 2382 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
Subscribe
Access our magazine content direct via our website, app or print magazine
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

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 impossible pound note

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.

Mystery in the mire

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 net comes home

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.

Death by misadventure

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.

Shock tactics

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

Pump-action bike security

Hartmut Hubert of Berlin has invented a great gadget for cyclists: a lock that not only stops vandals stealing your bicycle, but safeguards the pump too. The secret? The lock also acts as your pump. Most cyclists lock their bikes with a U-lock, a U-shaped rod of hardened steel that you stick between the spokes. …

News

Only four ancestral mammals survived the perilous journey to Madagascar

News

Lamps lit early in cosmic history

News

Humans too tasty to resist

News

MAP stakes its claim where no probe has been before

News

Medicine

News

Our Universe in glorious detail

News

Historic huts in deep guano

News

Modified crops 'have big benefits for Third World'

News

Deadly poisons reveal their friendly side

News

'Blowtorch' risk to shuttle

News

Meanwhile, the show must go on

News

Soundbites

News

Don't eat soya if you're pregnant

News

Going the way of the dodo?

News

Britain wants genetically modified food to have DNA bar codes

News

Sifting through the clues

News

Little dunes grow big by stealing sand

News

Quantum solution

News

Lethal loris

News

Smells bad

News

Gardening on Mars

News

Kissing right

News

Tests improve odds in frog fungus fight

News

Denim buildings are latest in green chic

News

We hear that…

News

Subs eavesdrop on crashing fish stocks

News

Is gravity leaking away?

News

Technology

Golden fries, no problem

News

Disease genes can be silenced

News

Technology

Video projectors go 3D

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.

By their bar codes shall ye know them

IT SOUNDS like a trick worthy of the gene police in Gattaca, but hiding a bar code in DNA could prove very valuable for identifying genetically modified plants. Spotting modified plants at present is a tough job because you need to know what has been added before you know what to look for (see "Britain …

Opinion

Farewell to hand waving

Opinion

Humans

Westminster diary

Opinion

The word tumucumaque

Opinion

The peace maker

Opinion

Meet the ancestors

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 impossible pound note

It was about 4 o'clock on 14 November 1888 – a Wednesday. The man behind the counter of the spirit store on Glasgow's Parliamentary Road was pretty sure of the time. And he remembered the man clearly. About 40 years old, medium height with brown whiskers. He had a "dissipated appearance" and "appeared to have …

Features

Mystery in the mire

Features

The net comes home

Features

Death by misadventure

Features

Shock tactics

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.

Do u wan2 tlk? ;-)

IF YOU own a mobile phone, how do you think you'd cope without it? A recent study by the Italian consumer association looked at the effect of depriving 300 volunteers of their phones for two weeks. Nearly 1 in 6 reported loss of appetite or depression. And a quarter confessed that being phoneless was a …

Inside Science

Steven Weinberg

Books & Arts

Rocky Kolb

Books & Arts

Life

Downhill all the way

Books & Arts

The other evolutionist

Books & Arts

The Story of Life by Richard Southwood (2003)

Books & Arts

Callous nature

Books & Arts

Lone survivor

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

WE WERE impressed to hear about the largesse of a prominent British government-funded research organisation, which we won't name to avoid creating embarrassment. But we were less impressed by its computer security. A friend turned up last week bearing a rather nice laptop computer. He had just found it in some rubbish outside a block …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop