They're forever DIAMONDS provide the most lasting evidence of ancient asteroid impacts, according to geologists in Germany. Falko Langenhorst of the University of Bayreuth and his colleagues have shown that the heat and pressure of an impact convert bits of buried coal or graphite into diamonds (Geology, vol 27, p 747). "The shape of impact diamonds is … News
Humans Westminster diary TUBERCULOSIS, the people's plague, claims nearly 1.5 million lives worldwide every year—the eighth biggest killer in the global disease league. Regrettably, careless treatment regimes have encouraged drug-resistant strains of the bacillus to develop, which don't respond well to further treatment. John Crofton, the Edinburgh doctor who showed 40 years ago that giving TB patients a … Opinion
Green miracle TAKE a long, deep breath. Now spare a moment to think about the precious oxygen you've just inhaled. Without it you'd be unconscious in a couple of minutes, and dead soon afterwards. It's no mystery where this life-sustaining gas comes from: plants churn it out as a by-product of photosynthesis. If they didn't, neither we … Features
from London Calendar by David Ewing Duncan, Fourth Estate The Meaning of It All by Richard Feynman, Penguin From Brains to Consciousness? by Steven Rose, Princeton University Press The Little Book of Science by John Gribbin, Penguin The Mathematical Brain by Brian Butterworth, Macmillan A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, Simon & Schuster The Science of Discworld … Books & Arts
Feedback THE FIRST terrestrial "life form" to escape from our Solar System may be a computer virus. One of Feedback's colleagues was trying to open an electronic press release last week when his virus scanner began to bleep madly. No great surprise there. Press agents often seem blissfully unaware that macro viruses might be lurking in … Regulars