Humans
The great brain race
Features
This week's magazine
5 December 1992
Issue 1850
Editor's picks
Time to shelve the library?: Who needs libraries now that the world’s information is accessible through computer networks? Soon only historians may be interested in these shrines to learning
Features
Back to the days of deadly smogs: Forty years ago this week, four thousand Londoners died in the worst air-pollution disaster on record. London has cleaned up its act, but smog is killing again in other cities
Features
A sticky end for disease: While sticky molecules help hold our bodies together that may not be all they are good for. By manipulating their stickiness, scientists are hoping to develop new treatments for illnesses
Features
Raising a stink in Boston: One of the biggest civil engineering projects in America aims to stop Bostonians polluting their harbour. But the scheme could simply create a problem for someone else
Features
Radar explorers of the Solar System: What are asteroids made of? Is there ice on Mercury? Astronomers are turning to a technique devised to locate objects on Earth to find out more about the Solar System
Features
Table of contents
News
All I want for Christmas . . .
News
What Maggie didn’t want to know
News
Lean times for the glasshouse people
News
Governments queue up to buy US spy satellites
News
US Army asked to widen vaccine tests
News
Genome patents ‘a waste of time’
News
Where have all the young men gone?
News
Fusion researchers angry over White House gag
News
Darwin memorabilia go under the hammer
News
Moon runs rings round Geneva physicists
News
France takes the lead on medical ethics
News
Divisions deepen over Danube diversion
News
Transplant success
News
Agreement reduces damage to ozone layer
News
Will Britain fail the acid test?
News
Pig protest
News
Timber trouble
News
Ancient art
News
Advice sought
News
A cell to capture the imagination
News
Networking Europe
News
Pollute and publish
News
Working together
News
Lies, damn lies and government statistics: In the spirit of the Citizen’s Charter, the government has forced local councils to publish statistics to check on their performance. Whitehall itself is not playing by the same rules
News
Science: Merlin’s magic finds cosmic mirages
News
Science: How to spot the farthest quasars
News
Science: Macaque attacks succeed best during sex
News
Science: The Milky Way’s darkest secret
News
Science: Hard-rock cafe
News
Science: Test promises early detection of TB
News
Science: Warmer world brings hurricane warning
News
Science: The neutron star in our backyard
News
Science: Fossils force rethink of origins of Man
News
Science: How to take a ‘visible X-ray’
News
Science: Sun’s cycles not main cause of climatic change
News
Technology
Technology: Art of glass improves displays
News
Technology
Technology: North sea oil rigs will be safer by design
News
Technology
Technology: Reflections of a ‘forbidden’ photon
News
Technology
Technology: Setting fungus against fungus to safeguard crops
News
Technology
Technology: Camera keeps an eye on airport vehicles
News
Technology
Technology: Ocean-going ‘socks’ get the drift
News
Opinion
Features
Humans
The great brain race
Over the past three million years the human brain has grown faster than those of most other animals. But its large size is not the only thing that makes it so powerful
Features
Time to shelve the library?: Who needs libraries now that the world’s information is accessible through computer networks? Soon only historians may be interested in these shrines to learning
Features
Back to the days of deadly smogs: Forty years ago this week, four thousand Londoners died in the worst air-pollution disaster on record. London has cleaned up its act, but smog is killing again in other cities
Features
A sticky end for disease: While sticky molecules help hold our bodies together that may not be all they are good for. By manipulating their stickiness, scientists are hoping to develop new treatments for illnesses
Features
Raising a stink in Boston: One of the biggest civil engineering projects in America aims to stop Bostonians polluting their harbour. But the scheme could simply create a problem for someone else
Features
Radar explorers of the Solar System: What are asteroids made of? Is there ice on Mercury? Astronomers are turning to a technique devised to locate objects on Earth to find out more about the Solar System
Features
More
Technology
How do noise cancelling headphones like Apple Airpods Pro work?
Noise cancelling technology like that used in the new Apple Airpods Pro and Bose headphones was originally invented in the early 1980s to prevent ear damage for pilots and was later used by tank crews in the US Army. Read this story from the 1992 New 杏吧原创 archive to understand how noise cancelling headphones work with the use of antisound
Regulars
Review: Playing God
Books & Arts
Review: An aerial view of Britain’s past
Books & Arts
Review: Chimpanzees and the question of culture
Books & Arts
Review: The day the stork ran out of luck
Books & Arts
Review: Red skies in the morning
Books & Arts
Review: Variety is the spice of life
Books & Arts
Review: Images of Earth as a teacher’s aid
Books & Arts
Review: Third World debt is a burden to us all
Books & Arts
