Middleweights join the black hole family BLACK holes really do come in all sizes: last week, astronomers announced strong evidence that certain bright X-ray sources in the sky are indeed "intermediate-mass" black holes, hundreds of times the mass of our Sun. But their origins remain a puzzle. We know of several small black holes in our Galaxy, similar in mass to … News
The word votive psychology THROWING stuff in the water has always had a strange appeal. In the US, companies offer Amish-style wishing wells as lawn ornaments or kits for charities as a sure-fire money-spinner. And in Britain, an exhibition last month at Newcastle Library featuring mundane objects recovered from the bottom the city's Leazes Park lake was a huge … Opinion
The lost palms of Pará In December 1848, a case of specimens from Brazil arrived at the gates of Kew Gardens. The box was addressed to William Hooker, England's most eminent botanist. Hooker remembered the young man who had sent them. Alfred Russel Wallace had asked for a letter of introduction before he set off for South America and Hooker … Features
Captain's log Space: The final frontier? by Giancarlo Genta and Michael Rycroft, Cambridge University Press, £18.95/$29 ISBN 0521814030 Reviewed by Helen Gavaghan DUST jackets can be irritatingly misleading. With its clichéd title and breathy prose of striving and challenges, Space: The final frontier? has one that falls into this category. The content is, in fact, more of … Books & Arts