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This week's magazine

25 February 2006

Issue 2540

New Scientist issue 2540 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.

Life

History: The lady who sold time

Features
Visiting Triassic Park

Life

Visiting Triassic Park

Features
Earth: The parched planet

Earth

Earth: The parched planet

Features
The hypertelescope: a zoom with a view

Space

The hypertelescope: a zoom with a view

Features
Growing hydrogen for the cars of tomorrow

Earth

Growing hydrogen for the cars of tomorrow

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.

Life

Cellphones search for more sex than ever

LOOKING at porn on a PC is, apparently, so last century, and only a fool risks a furtive glance at adult websites on their company PDA. Nowadays the cellphone is the device of choice for those seeking out porn on the web, according to research by Google. Computer scientists Maryan Kamvar and Shumeet Baluja analysed …

News

Earth

Watering crops in the wireless age

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Life

Dinosaur 'crime scenes' submit to forensic scrutiny

News

Technology

Operate on a heart without missing a beat

News

Technology

This week 26 years ago in New Scientist

News

Life

For a new personality, click here

News

Health

New twist in the structure of DNA

News

Space

Found: universe's missing metal

News

Life

Snails that boast magnetic boots

News

Technology

Quantum computer works best switched off

News

Life

Y chromosomes give the name away

News

Life

Sex with a partner is 400% better

News

Soundbites

News

Life

Gladiators fought by the book

News

Life

Insight: Surf's up and so are the sharks

News

Earth

Three Gorges dam threatens vast fishery

News

Life

Crab sees UV where the sun don't shine

News

Life

Listen to what the reefs are saying

News

Snapshots

News

Space

Space is running out of space

News

Earth

Greenland's water loss has doubled in a decade

News

Life

Stress linked to early miscarriage

News

Earth

New Orleans fights for survival

News

Life

Water gave life on Earth a guiding hand

News

Life

Starve your stomach to feed your brain

News

Life

Is this the Bard I see before me?

News

Earth

US agencies accused of muzzling climate experts

News

60 Seconds

News

Health

Top paediatrician cleared of misconduct

News

Life

Foster care offers hope to orphans

News

Health

Global task force to target fake-drug peddlers

News

Earth

Climate killing africa's crops

News

Space

Star candidates for life beyond Earth

News

Earth

Europe's habitats give way to malls

News

Opinion

NASA takes a wrong turn

Space

NASA takes a wrong turn

OUR love affair with Einstein is over. This time last year, we were celebrating his legacy as part of World Year of Physics. We couldn't get enough of black holes, gravity and space-time. Less than two months later, NASA announced that it was postponing most of its "Beyond Einstein" cosmology programmes to help pay for …

Opinion

Space

Editorial: A new dark age for NASA

Opinion

Life

Learning to love our little monkeys

Opinion

Life

Interview: Who am I? Who are you?

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

History: The lady who sold time

If you wanted to know the time in 1930s London, you could listen for the pips on the radio, subscribe to a telegraphic time service – or arrange a weekly visit from an octogenarian spinster called Ruth Belville. For almost 50 years, Miss Belville had carried Greenwich Mean Time from its home at the Royal …

Features

Life

Visiting Triassic Park

Features

Earth

Earth: The parched planet

Features

Space

The hypertelescope: a zoom with a view

Features

Earth

Growing hydrogen for the cars of tomorrow

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.

Health

Please, Mr. Einstein by Jean-Claude Carrière

AN ANONYMOUS girl in an unidentified city enters a nondescript building where she meets Albert Einstein. Is he a ghost? Are they in some hidden dimension? We don't know. That's the surreal premise of Please, Mr. Einstein , a short novel that is written almost entirely in dialogue. Einstein explains relativity in the simplest terms, …

Books & Arts

For people who live in greenhouses

Books & Arts

Big pharma tackles drug discovery problems

Careers

The word: Scoville scale

Regulars

Life

Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the science of flavor by Hervé This

Books & Arts

Earth

How to rescue a planet under stress

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

Disappearing teaspoons SEVERAL readers, among them Jenney Shepherd, Caroline Hauxwell and Jackie Leung, have alerted us to an intriguing paper in the British Medical Journal , "The case of the disappearing teaspoons" by Megan S. CLim, Margaret E. Hellard and Campbell K. Aitken of the Institute for Medical Research and Public Health, Melbourne, Australia ( …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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