MAGAZINE ISSUE DATE: 29 OCTOBER 2005 (Vol. 187 No 2523)
BOX OF TRICKS TAKE SURGERY TO THE STICKSFor people living in remote areas of the developing world, where the nearest hospital is hundreds of miles away, the operating theatre could be driven to them. A solar-powered "hospital in a box" , which was unveiled in London last week, fits into the back of a Land Rover and is designed to allow three surgeons to carry out life-saving operations anywhere in the world. NEWS Page 28
BOMBERS COULD SOON BE BREATHALYSEDA technology originally designed for medical diagnosis, could soon catch out bomb makers. The portable breathalyser can detect the chemical signature of explosives when they are exhaled by people who have handled them. The American inventors believe the device could one day give counter-terrorism investigators a result within minutes. NEWS Page 28
BONE MARROW DONORS RISK DNA IDENTITY MIX-UPThis week, at a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Salt Lake City, an expert in scientific crime highlighted the increased risk of a miscarriage of justice associated with bone marrow transplants. As forensic DNA databases grow, and more people undergo bone marrow transplants, the risk of someone's DNA being implicated in crimes they did not commit increases. The blood of a bone marrow recipient will be populated with the DNA from the donor. NEWS Page 11
WHICH IVF TEST IS BEST FOR BABY?PGD or "preimplantation genetic diagnosis" involves taking one of eight cells from an embryo to select for implantation. So far, there is no evidence that removing a cell harms the embryo. But at a meeting last week in Montreal, Canada, reproductive scientists debated just how safe the technique is, and who should be allowed to use it. NEWS Page 10
GUIDE TO THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN TRIALNew Scientist is in Dover, Pennsylvania where a court battle is taking place over whether school children should be taught Darwin's evolution or the religious alternative - Intelligent Design (ID). It's the first time that ID, the idea that life was created by an anonymous designer, has been debated in court. Celeste Biever gives the insider story over 4 pages. Pages 6-9
PREGNANT PAUSE OVER IRON PILLSSHORT STORY: Pregnant women who take iron supplements could be putting their children at risk of suffering behavioural problems, a preliminary Australian study says. NEWS Page 18 HOW DINOSAURS WERE ABLE TO GROW SO BIGHow dinosaurs grew to such an enormous size has always been a mystery because their small heads and necks would have limited how efficiently they breathed and ate. Now German researchers say that a pair of bird-like lungs could have helped the largest dinosaurs overcome these limitations. Birds have nine extra air sacs to supplement their lungs, and a bird's respiratory system is much less dense than the fleshy lungs of a mammal. NEWS Page 14
WILD IN THE CITYWild birds and animals are venturing down into our cities to try a spot of urban living. As a result towns and cities are becoming more wildlife-friendly, in some cases even offering them special man-made homes. But by luring them into urban environments, we could be exposing them to hazards they are ill-equipped to handle. FEATURE Pages 34-38
GREATEST EVER SPACE SCI-FI POLLAxed cult TV series, Firefly, has been voted the world's best space science fiction work ever in an international poll conducted by NewScientistSpace.com, New Scientist's space news website. What's more, Serenity, the movie spin-off from the Firefly TV series was second in the poll. Doctor Who, came in third amongst UK voters, but only tenth in the worldwide poll.
You can view the results in full on http://NewScientistSpace.com from 26th October.
New Scientist is to begin testing a podcasting service, with the first edition available online from the 4th November. Each week listeners will be able to access a 15 minute podcast available to download on their mp3 player or onto their desktop via a media player. Further information is available to any potential listeners online from 26 October on: http://NewScientist.com/podcast.
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New Scientist is the world's leading science and technology news weekly, boasting a circulation of 161,506. The magazine is now available to readers worldwide, with US and Australian editions of New Scientist now being published. Visit our public website for further stories with our daily online news service: http://www.newscientist.com
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