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This week's magazine

18 December 2004

Issue 2478

New Scientist issue 2478 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.

Health

Peering through the tobacco smokescreen

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.

Health

The gene with your life in its hands

Features
Speed dating and the rules of attraction

Life

Speed dating and the rules of attraction

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

The first evidence for string theory?

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

One drip could save our microchips

A DROP of water may be all it takes to ensure microprocessors get ever more powerful and memory chips ever more dense. So say engineers who have made the first microprocessor fabricated using a technique that lets chip makers shrink transistors without having to resort to expensive new manufacturing technologies. Microprocessors and memories are etched …

News

Technology

Stop or I'll scream

News

Technology

Feeling the heat

News

Technology

Do you take metal?

News

Life

Anthropologists to beat gadget rage

News

Technology

How do you use yours?

News

Technology

Pliable solar cells are on a roll

News

Technology

Buckets of bacteria may grow optical computers

News

Technology

Turning living rooms into virtual gyms

News

Health

Low-level radiation may trigger heart disease

News

Life

Dog muzzles point to speedy evolution

News

Soundbites

News

Life

Second link discovered in human language circuit

News

Life

Settled life makes for speedy cultural evolution

News

Health

Childhood cancer rising across Europe

News

Health

Alcohol may help cancers grow

News

Earth

Bugs ravage North American forests

News

Earth

Space no place for cheap satellites

News

Earth

Cool the world: eat less, walk more

News

Earth

Bug 'batteries' send out pollution alert

News

Life

Birds duck and dive like fighter planes

News

Health

Fat chance for US immigrants

News

Life

Mystery over Tintin's

News

Life

Sounds change the way people see

News

Life

New angle on ants' scents of direction

News

Life

Ancient flute-makers worked to the same tune

News

Earth

Arctic ocean was once a balmy sea

News

Health

Pop stars sing again in aid of Africa

News

Health

Poisoned Ukraine contender can be treated

News

Space

US gives green light to space tourism bill

News

Health

US to stockpile anthrax vaccine

News

Earth

Toxic tanker flounders off pristine coast

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Liver damage trials break new ground

News

Life

Calculating face values takes two brain areas

News

Earth

Dunes are alive with the sand of music

News

Earth

Climate change issues clouded by ozone

News

Space

Send astronauts to Hubble, NASA urged

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.

Life

Psychology and the art of persuasion

DO YOU prefer cake to oranges? Do you sometimes forget to wash your hands after using the toilet? If the answer is yes, then you are a normal human doing what comes naturally, even if this is not necessarily what is good for you. Getting people to do what is good for them is notoriously …

Opinion

Life

Editorial: Argument over cod is back on the menu

Opinion

Humans

Westminster diary

Opinion

Health

Interview: Return of a 'beautiful mind'

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.

Health

Peering through the tobacco smokescreen

One sunny afternoon in May four years ago, I emerged somewhat dazed from the Wellcome Trust offices in London, onto the busy Euston Road. I had popped in with colleagues for an informal chat. We walked out with an agreement that the charity would give us £1 million for a massive project to obtain a …

Features

Health

The gene with your life in its hands

Features

Life

Speed dating and the rules of attraction

Features

Physics

The first evidence for string theory?

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.

Who's reading what: physicist John Rigden

To celebrate the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis, January sees the publication of Rigden's Einstein 1905 by Harvard University Press. For other angles, he is reading Andrew Whitaker's Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma (Cambridge, 1995) and has just finished Edmund Blair Bolles's Einstein Defiant (Joseph Henry Press). Rigden also enjoyed David Cassidy's Oppenheimer and …

Books & Arts

Life

Four books on Alexander the Great

Books & Arts

Who's reading what: biologist Marc Bekoff

Books & Arts

Life

The Dinosauria edited by David Weishampel, Peter Dodson and Halszka Osmolska

Books & Arts

Space

Rocket Science by Alfred J. Zaehringer and Steve Whitfield

Books & Arts

Leaps in the Dark by John Waller

Books & Arts

Life

John James Audubon by Richard Rhodes

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

Non-sciency names WE recently reported Steve Hibbert's proposition that "prion" is a sciency name while "spongler" is not (27 November) . Did readers know of any other non-sciency names that have squinked into the lexicon, we wondered. A gratifying large number did, and here are some of the examples that were sent in. Many come …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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