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This week's magazine

30 April 2005

Issue 2497

New Scientist issue 2497 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.

Space

Histories: Dear diary, met Napoleon

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

Cattle plague: A killer in the fold

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

Feature: Return of the space shuttle

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

Flying circles around the helicopter

Features
The theory of everything: Are we nearly there yet?

Physics

The theory of everything: Are we nearly there yet?

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

Invention

KEEP ON RUNNING While electric hybrid vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in the US, the government's Environmental Protection Agency thinks they are the wrong type. Most drivers are buying hybrids that work using a "parallel" system. In them the wheels are driven by a battery-powered electric motor, and a conventional fuel-burning engine takes over when …

News

Earth

Squeaky clean fossil fuels

News

Technology

Bacteria harnessed as miniature pumps

News

Technology

Children's roundabout turned into water pump

News

Technology

Tiny refrigerators close in on absolute zero

News

Technology

VR headset spots concussion in minutes

News

Technology

Google searches for quality not quantity

News

Technology

Police toy with 'less lethal' weapons

News

Life

As alert as ever on just two hours' sleep

News

Earth

Baby volcanoes discovered bubbling under

News

Technology

Voters empowered by internet swap shop

News

Earth

Shrinking glaciers confirm the worst

News

Space

Ripples cause cosmic doubts over inflation

News

Physics

Super-lens brings fine features into focus

News

Life

Terror attack hit male birth rate

News

Life

Fastest-living fish on the reef

News

Life

Songbirds flash secret sexual signals

News

Health

Daycare protects against leukaemia

News

Technology

Political pollsters cast their nets wider

News

Soundbites

News

Physics

Hunt for the pentaquark draws a blank this time

News

Technology

China's Great Wall holds the key to quantum future

News

Physics

Nuclear storm in a teacup created

News

Life

Mind reading machine knows your thoughts before you

News

Health

Suspended animation would buy vital time

News

Earth

Warmer world could mean failing crops

News

Health

Regulations aim to prevent bias in medical teaching

News

Space

Can human life be put on hold?

News

Space

Hubble celebrates its birthday with more glorious images

News

60 Seconds

News

Technology

Sony sets up online shop for gaming-goodies

News

Health

Genetic screening can be fear-free

News

Life

Info-overload harms concentration more than marijuana

News

Earth

100-kilometre coral reef discovered off Australia

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.

Humans

Washington diary

THE US has a problem with plutonium. Along with Russia, it is dismantling a lot of nuclear weapons and needs to do something with the fissile material they contained. So the government is paying a power company to burn it in a reactor to make electricity. The plutonium is first turned into mixed oxide reactor …

Opinion

Life

Essay: Brains wide shut?

Opinion

UK election: Do not mention the G-word

Opinion

Editorial: Do not let this plague get away

Opinion

Physics

Editorial: 42 and all that

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.

Space

Histories: Dear diary, met Napoleon

In July 1802, astronomer William Herschel and his family left their home in England for a holiday in Paris. For two weeks, the Herschels did the sights, went to the opera and admired the city's paintings and statues. None of which would be at all remarkable, except Britain had been at war with France for …

Features

Life

Cattle plague: A killer in the fold

Features

Space

Feature: Return of the space shuttle

Features

Technology

Flying circles around the helicopter

Features

Physics

The theory of everything: Are we nearly there yet?

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.

Life

Yanomami: The fierce controversy and what we can learn from it by Robert Borofsky

ARGUABLY the most famous ethnography ever, Napoleon Chagnon's Yanomami: The fierce people has been a course classic since it appeared in 1968, and has influenced thousands. It, and Changon's subsequent popular and academic books, put him squarely into the pantheon of anthropology's greats. Then in 2000, investigative journalist Patrick Tierney published Darkness in El Dorado …

Books & Arts

A Machine to Make a Future: Biotech chronicles by Paul Rabinow and Talia Dan-Cohen

Books & Arts

The Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlist

Books & Arts

Health

Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks by Ed Lake

Books & Arts

Bestsellers in Portland, Oregon

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

Oscillating DNA IS IT JUST us, or are the plugs for remedies for the gullible getting more complicated? John Noble alerts us to a remarkable offering at www.desertrainnutrition.com promoting a substance (or is it a homeopathic non-substance?) called Aulterra. Here's a sample: "DNA unwinds when the hydrogen bonds that hold the helix together are broken …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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