¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

This week's magazine

29 January 2005

Issue 2484

New Scientist issue 2484 cover
Previous issue Next issue
arrow
View in the app
Check out this magazine in our easy-to-navigate mobile app
arrow
Find a previous edition online
Search through our digital archive of over 30 years of magazines

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.

Earth

Brimstone and bicycles

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

Senses special: The feeling of colour

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.

Future sense

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

Senses special: Doors of perception

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

Senses special: The art of seeing without sight

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

How to do an infinite number of things before breakfast

Features
Supertasking with the genie of the lamp

Physics

Supertasking with the genie of the lamp

Features

Table of contents

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

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

SEARCH AND YE SHALL PATENT Is a search engine that highlights the searched-for terms in the pages it brings up a new idea? Google thinks so and has just been granted a patent for this seemingly obvious idea. Google's patent (US 6839702) covers a search engine that highlights the searched-for words in pages retrieved as …

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Nice TV, shame about the picture

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Plastic radio chips cut cost of ID tags

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Solar super-sail could reach Mars in a month

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Cellphones used to operate PCs

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Disc writers now print the label too

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Sex pheromone spray boosts senior romance

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Taste for meat made humans early weaners

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Antarctic waters yield cancer-fighting molecules

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

How a Venus flytrap snaps up its victims

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Terrorist explosive blows up without flames

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Tribal rules could boost internet cooperation

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Google's search for meaning

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

60 Seconds

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Quake, flood, fire. Will we be ready?

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Sun blamed for desert rocks cracking up

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Volcanic eruptions caused Permian period extinctions

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Global temperatures could be set to soar

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Early blindness frees brain-power for hearing

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Inflamed organs could act as prion incubators

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Soundbites

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Fears grow of US attack on Iran

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Does 'RNA editing' make us brainy?

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

New roads can cause congestion

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Life

Bush stem cell lines all contaminated

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Space

Titan is 'shockingly Earth-like'

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Cuba no place for Havana smoke

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

'Grid' supercomputing available on tap

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Technology

Earthquake-proof foam homes could save lives

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Earth

Asian earthquake risk suggested before tsunami disaster

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

Health

Boston lab in biosecurity fiasco

¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

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

DISASTER in Asia has cast dark shadows on US government scientists. No one is publicly blaming the US Geological Survey or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for letting anyone die. But some in Congress are echoing concerned scientists who wonder why a well-fashioned and well-tested seismic network, which detected the quake within minutes, …

Opinion

Interview: The not so quiet Irishman

Opinion

Opioids could offer mass market pain relief

Opinion

Earth

Editorial: Words will not save us from further disaster

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.

Earth

Brimstone and bicycles

ON 5 April 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia began to grumble. A week later the volcano blew its top in a spectacular eruption that went on until July. It was the biggest eruption in recorded history, killing around 92,000 people and ejecting so much ash into the atmosphere that average global temperatures dipped by 3 …

Features

Life

Senses special: The feeling of colour

Features

Future sense

Features

Life

Senses special: Doors of perception

Features

Life

Senses special: The art of seeing without sight

Features

Physics

How to do an infinite number of things before breakfast

Features

Physics

Supertasking with the genie of the lamp

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.

Current reads of Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist

Kaku's Parallel Worlds is out soon (Penguin). It considers the possibility of travelling from our universe to other universes through wormholes and black holes. He is reading about supermassive black holes in The Edge of Infinity by Fulvio Melia (Cambridge, 2003). "It is truly remarkable that, before our eyes, just in the past decade or …

Books & Arts

Space

The Sun: A biography

Books & Arts

Current reads of Bernd Heinrich, biologist

Books & Arts

The Writing Life of James D Watson by Errol C Friedberg

Books & Arts

Physics

The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein: The Berlin Years

Books & Arts

Life

Fossil Plants by Paul Kenrick and Paul Davis

Books & Arts

Space

Origins: Fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith

Books & Arts

Technology

Information Politics on the Web by Richard Rogers

Books & Arts

Gehry Draws edited by Mark Rappolt and Robert Violette

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

Wacky warning labels THIS column periodically publishes absurd product warnings spotted by our ever-vigilant readers. So we have a certain sense of fellow feeling with a group called the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, which runs an annual competition for the "wackiest consumer warning label of the year". This year's $500 first prize, announced earlier this …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

Browse past issues

View all
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop