Subscribe now

This week's magazine

27 November 2004

Issue 2475

New Scientist issue 2475 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.

Life

White knuckles in the first rubber raft

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

Chinese whispers

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.

Physics

Unlocking the secret power of RNA

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.

Mount St Helens grows its own glacier

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.

Space

The strange gravitational effect of eclipses

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

US space bomber gets hypersonic boost

WHEN NASA's record-breaking hypersonic X-43A aircraft dived into the ocean last week, the space agency's budget for hypersonic civil aviation research sank with it. The technology will instead wind up at the Pentagon, where it will be used to build a bomber that can attack targets anywhere in the world within 2 hours. Last week's …

News

Technology

Cartoon characters have minds of their own

News

Technology

Sprawling systems teeter on IT chaos

News

Technology

Bass bonanza

News

Technology

Tongue twister

News

Technology

Slick operator

News

Technology

Microsoft plumbs China for IT talent

News

Earth

City congestion charge clears the air

News

Technology

Laser zaps the home of bad breath bugs

News

Life

Forensic clock calls time on crimes

News

Life

'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon

News

Health

Gel may help cure cervical cancer

News

Life

Endurance running is in east Africans' genes

News

Physics

The smallest measurable length announced

News

Life

Stress linked to painful periods

News

Earth

Water holds tallest sand dunes together

News

Life

Original great ape was no swinger

News

Technology

Digital technique reveals fake art

News

Technology

Nano-drug may starve tumours

News

Soundbites

News

Physics

Amateur puts maths riddle to the test

News

Technology

Cellphones turn into smart personal assistants

News

Technology

Spotting the next bestseller

News

Health

Back pain linked to shrinking brain

News

Earth

Warmer lakes will face deep trouble

News

Earth

Crisis looms in Darwin's paradise

News

Earth

Church air worse than by busy roads

News

Health

Antibiotic’s star role as HIV wonder drug

News

Earth

Eco-city designed to save the lynx

News

Earth

Kyoto's big day is announced

News

Health

Tobacco companies' political donations 'buy' votes

News

Technology

Idle PCs could tackle global problems

News

Life

Quest for human cloning ban is abandoned

News

Space

Swift space telescope finally put into orbit

News

Life

Porn panic over eroto-toxins

News

60 Seconds

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.

Earth

Washington Diary

IN THE 1992 campaign for US President, candidate Ross Perot warned that if the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed, the country would hear what he called "a giant sucking sound". He referred to the loss of US jobs that he predicted would be "sucked" across the Mexican border to be filled by lower-paid …

Opinion

Life

Interview: The passionate life

Opinion

Life

The meeting of religious and scientific minds

Opinion

Technology

Behind the Great Firewall of China

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.

Life

White knuckles in the first rubber raft

Ramesses II wasthe Egyptian pharaoh who outdid all other pharaohs. He lived to the age of 92, reigned for 67 yearsand built more templesand monuments than any other pharaoh. But his reputation as the greatest of kings rests on his military exploits. Ramesses was a warrior, driving his chariot into the thick of battle and …

Features

Technology

Chinese whispers

Features

Physics

Unlocking the secret power of RNA

Features

Mount St Helens grows its own glacier

Features

Space

The strange gravitational effect of eclipses

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.

Armand Marie Leroi, reader in evolutionary developmental biology, Imperial College London

What are you reading? The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and philosophy in the age of Goethe (Chicago University Press, 2002) by Robert Richards, the US's leading historian of biology. He aims to rehabilitate the German Naturphilosophes: Friedrich Schelling was the first to use the word evolution in its modern sense; Goethe counted the metre …

Books & Arts

Rainer Glaser, professor of chemistry, University of Missouri-Columbia

Books & Arts

Earth

Pompeii to ground zero

Books & Arts

Life

Look after mother

Books & Arts

Earth

Fighting fit

Books & Arts

Life

See gulls differently

Books & Arts

Catch up on astronomy

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

MANY of us make stern resolves at midnight on 31 December, often to abstain from substances associated with celebrations. Sadly, many of these resolutions will be forgotten by the morning, and most of the rest won't be fulfilled. So begins yet another year plagued by guilt and a sense of failure. But Feedback is here …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

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