Technology The sound of hard cash UK security printer De La Rue of Basingstoke, Hampshire, has invented a banknote that helps blind people recognise which notes they are handling (GB 2400074). Its idea is to emboss a pattern of troughs and ridged lines, like miniature furrows in a field, at both ends of a banknote. When the note is folded in … News
Humans Westminster diary EXPERT witnesses have been a puzzle for the legal system for more than a century. The book Laws of Men and Laws of Nature traces their tale back to 18the-century arguments about the causes of the decline of Wells harbour on England's east coast (New Scientist, 28 August, p 51) . More recent cases have … Opinion
The arch revolutionary "We have it in our power to begin the world overagain," proclaimed revolutionary firebrand Thomas Paine in his pamphlet Common Sense, published in 1776. Newly arrived from England, Paine's writings helped to convince the downtrodden American colonists to revolt against Britain. So once the war was won, you might have expected him to do his … Features
Travel in good company Richard Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale follows a band of pilgrims seeking their biological ancestors on a journey 4 billion years back in time. We modern humans are the pilgrims, and Dawkins acts as our host, invoking Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims journeying to Canterbury. Along the way we meet bands of animal, plant and other pilgrims at … Books & Arts
Feedback URBAN legends are particularly satisfying when you can catch them in the larval stage, so to speak. Gossip is beginning appear on the internet about a new telephone scam in the UK. Someone phones to say "Congratulations! You could be the lucky winner of a fantastic holiday! Press number nine on your keypad!" and then … Regulars