麻豆传媒

Slugs and snails and scientists’ tales: You rarely see them but you witness the damage – They ruin your crops, savage your seedlings and spread disease / They are almost impossible to control, or even to count

Not enough fish in the sea: Sand-eel fisheries around the Shetland isles are in decline, and young seabirds are dying – Why did the British government ignore the warnings, while demanding ‘proof’ of the connection?

Spin-offs for safer cars: Composite materials make racing cars stiff, strong and safer. Using more of them in ordinary vehicles could give average drivers better protection in crashes

What’s so hot about superconductors?: Three years ago, superconducting ceramics were heralded as the new wonder materials set to change industry. Now, high-temperature superconductors seem not so super after all

Health

Another man’s poison

How elastic is a running shoe?: We test the shoes that might save you energy as you run. Can manufacturers really manage to put a spring in your step?

The race for a better running shoe: Some manufacturers claim that their shoes give ‘energy return’ to help you to run faster. Others say that their rivals are chasing an illusion

Light at end of the tunnel: LEP, the machine of the moment in big physics, will study the Standard Model of particle physics – It will also reveal the parts of fundamental theory that other accelerators cannot reach

The making of a particle machine: Next week, the world’s largest particle accelerator, LEP, will be ready for action – The last weeks of preparing one of the detectors for LEP reveal what a massive international engineering operation high energy physics

Nice work for a worm: Never underestimate the earthworm – Farmers want more and sewage works could use them / Worms could even wriggle their way onto the Stock Exchange soon

Hungry for power in space: A modern satellite uses less energy than an electric fire – Future space missions and the weapons of star wars will need the generating capacity of a small power station

Health

Cooking up a storm

Buried treasure in human genes: Mapping the human genome is the biological equivalent of going to the Moon – both in cost and, say sceptics, in sheer futility

Lasers start to shine in fluid situations: Engineers need to know the forces that the wind, waves and ice exert on their structures at sea. Lasers are helping them to do the job better than before