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This week's magazine

4 January 1997

Issue 2063

New Scientist issue 2063 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.

Small, smart and adaptable - Staffed by squads of fist-sized robots, tomorrow's high-precision assembly lines will be put together at a few hours' notice on a desk-sized factory floor. Bennett Daviss reports

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.

Planet in a bottle

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.

Feynman and the psychotherapist

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.

Can't stop shopping - Spend, spend, spend scream the signs in the store windows—words that spell disaster for those who can't control the urge to buy. Michael Day reports from the shopping capital of the world

Features

Table of contents

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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.

Science : Can DNA in food find its way into cells?

THE adage that "you are what you eat" has taken on a whole new meaning. Researchers in Germany claim that DNA fed to a mouse can survive digestion and invade cells throughout its body. Because food contains DNA, this may be a way for species to acquire genes, they argue. The surprising results were announced …

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Technology

Technology : Electronic police spoil video heist

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Technology

Technology : Altered vines turn the worm

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Technology

Netropolitan :

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Technology

Netropolitan :

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Technology

Technology : `Cooking' eases the pain of whiplash

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Technology

Technology : Collagen road signs show nerves the way

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Technology

Technology : Why the grass grows greener in Wales

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Science : Hidden damage triggers cancer

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Science : Gene branches out in a big way

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Science : If it's important, you'll remember it for longer

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Science : The cat in a box came back in a state

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The other big issue

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Technology

Technology : Online personality makes the best of all possible worlds

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Technology

Technology : Squat cat gets cars off to a clean start

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Science : Wobbling world brings iceberg surges

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Space

Science: A strange twist in the tale of the Universe

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Science : Why microbes need their midday siesta

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Mars mission may be postponed on doctor's orders

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It beats lazing on a beach…

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No quark parts

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Blood bar

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Plaque attack

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Anti-cat jab

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Cut-price collider

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Cryptic reward

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Drug ban

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World class ranking for Britain's biochemists

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Anti-porn firm silences Net critic

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Silicon Valley saves ancient scrolls

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Inquiry blasts explosives lab

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Europe lets in American supermaize …

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… as plan for future gene releases comes under fire

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Into the eye of the storm …

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Moa genes could rise from the dead

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Rare plants trampled in immigration crackdown

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Satellite feud may delay digital TV

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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.

Editorial: If it's safe, then prove it

YOU might think that the faceless bureaucrats of Brussels would occasionally learn that secrecy doesn't pay. But it seems not. Last week, the European Commission approved for sale in Europe a genetically engineered maize produced in the US. The maize contains genes for herbicide resistance plus a "natural insecticide" gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis …

Opinion

Editorial : Oxbridge hogs the limelight - THE 1996 assessment of research standards at British universities has now been published (This Week, p 6). If you want to surf round the country to see which departments are at the leading edge internationally wit

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.

Small, smart and adaptable - Staffed by squads of fist-sized robots, tomorrow's high-precision assembly lines will be put together at a few hours' notice on a desk-sized factory floor. Bennett Daviss reports

RALPH HOLLIS is a robotics specialist. And he has bad news. Year by year, the circuit boards, microchips and liquid crystal displays in everyday electronic products get smaller and so have to be assembled with greater precision. But the robots in today's factories are no longer up to the job. They are too big and …

Features

Planet in a bottle

Features

Feynman and the psychotherapist

Features

Can't stop shopping - Spend, spend, spend scream the signs in the store windows—words that spell disaster for those who can't control the urge to buy. Michael Day reports from the shopping capital of the world

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.

Forum : The status it deserves

THE present government is guilty of a wholesale retreat from publicly funded science. Its view is that if the market is not interested then the taxpayer should not be landed with it. It's the science of short-termism elevated to an art form. Labour, by contrast, sees publicly funded science as basic to a successful industrial …

Forum

Thistle diary : Yawning holes and rowdy neighbours - More comment from Westminster by Tam Dalyell

Forum

Forum : Science and sensibility

Forum

Review : Nerd's corner

Books & Arts

Review : Fear not

Books & Arts

Review : Mind made objects

Books & Arts

Review : Life is a beach

Books & Arts

Review : You read it here first

Books & Arts

Review : Salt of the Earth

Books & Arts

Review : Dissident history

Books & Arts

Review : Rose coloured spectacle

Books & Arts

Bestsellers : from London

Books & Arts

Review : Collected works

Books & Arts

Review : Life as cartoon

Books & Arts

Review : More, please

Books & Arts

Review : Art and the atom

Books & Arts

Review : Solar imagery

Books & Arts

Review : Lingua made franker

Books & Arts

Review : Survival of the cowardly

Books & Arts

Review : Values added

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

PATENTS guru Greg Aharonian runs the Internet Patent News Service and each year tots up the statistics on software-related patents. The first count for 1996 showed that there were in excess of 7000 software patents, compared with 6142 for 1995, and 4569 for 1994—and that was for the US alone. This, says Aharonian, means that …

Regulars

The Last Word

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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