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This week's magazine

4 December 2004

Issue 2476

New Scientist issue 2476 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.

Observing evolution in test tubes

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 killer with no name

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 cycling speed freaks of Battle Mountain

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.

Quantum tricks that read your thoughts

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.

Coalescing cavities bring water to boil

PHYSICISTS have finally figured out how water boils. Water has a high boiling point because of the energy it takes to break the network of hydrogen bonds holding together the water molecules. When water is heated, these bonds break randomly, sometimes forcing the hydrogen bonds to reorganise themselves in a way that creates a cavity …

News

Technology

Cyber detective links up crimes

News

Technology

Green pesticide is irresistible to ants

News

Technology

Catching the moment on digital cameras

News

Technology

Diamond-based chips for hardcore duties

News

Technology

Ultrasound gets radical

News

Technology

Is this curtains for concrete?

News

Soundbites

News

Violent stars aid planet formation

News

Doubts sown over safety of GM crops

News

US Congress slashes nuclear spending budgets

News

Some people are 'immune' to exercise

News

Sun gives Mars a halo of X-rays

News

Cold turkeys have fewer female chicks

News

Skin protein cripples E. coli's defences

News

High stress damages your DNA

News

Climate may have decimated ancient mammals

News

Stem cells muscle in on bladder control

News

Life

Giant squid to be 'plastinated' for posterity

News

Hope for the world's forgotten rabies victims

News

Mountain history hidden in fossilised leaves

News

Forests flourish under carpet of dead cicadas

News

We cannot slim on liposuction alone

News

Star's pulse of radiation is strongest ever

News

Learn faster by not trying too hard

News

How to predict a volcanic eruption

News

Tricked human eggs divide without sperm

News

Detection kit battles trade in bear parts

News

Ancient genes rise from the dead

News

Teenagers fail to see the consequences

News

Iris Murdoch's early signs of decline

News

60 Seconds

News

Companies could be sued for climate change

News

Critics slam Bush's space initiatives

News

US drugs agency accused of hindering Vioxx report

News

Cannabis use linked to psychotic experiences

News

Inflatable space module gets permission to launch

News

Fruit-pesticide threat to the ozone layer

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.

How big scientific ideas are born

THE Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz had some shrewd advice about getting ahead in science. "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast," he suggested. "It keeps him young." This will resonate with many researchers, but it might come as a shock to non-scientists, who …

Opinion

Editorial: The art of reconstructing ancestral genomes

Opinion

Editorial: Political problems delay fusion reactors

Opinion

Humans

Westminster diary

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.

Observing evolution in test tubes

TIME was when tiny islands and remote mountain tops were the only places for evolutionary biologists to develop their theories. In quiet isolation, they contemplated the curve of a finch's beak or the colour of a salamander's tail. Now a new breed of researchers are taking over. They have ditched their binoculars and sketchbooks in …

Features

The killer with no name

Features

The cycling speed freaks of Battle Mountain

Features

Quantum tricks that read your thoughts

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.

The day after tomorrow

ICE is a formidable force for change. Even so, it is hard to grasp that it shaped the world we inhabit. Our society owes its existence to the ice ages. We feed ourselves from crops grown on soils made from ancient wind-blown dust and the fine-grained products of glacial erosion. We build with materials mined …

Books & Arts

Big Bang by Simon Singh

Books & Arts

Thinking big

Careers

Six of the best – Pick your present

Books & Arts

Top 5 children's science books

Books & Arts

Present Philosophy

Books & Arts

Brain twisters

Books & Arts

Measure of a man

Books & Arts

Extreme irony

Books & Arts

What the past did for us

Books & Arts

Founding mother

Books & Arts

The Xmas Files: The philosophy of Christmas by Stephen Law

Books & Arts

On the streets of LA

Books & Arts

Be your own god

Books & Arts

A picture book feast for the eyes

Books & Arts

Going birding

Books & Arts

Heavenly advice

Books & Arts

Digital birding

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

AS SCIENCE probes ever smaller scales, we need new units. The existing measures of length, for example, only go as far as the yoctometre – that's 10 -24 metres. What's next? There is, Feedback has discovered, a proposal in the wings. "In 1993, hacker Morgan Burke proposed, to general approval, the following additional prefixes: groucho …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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