January 1996
Scientific American Magazine

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Cover; January 1996; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Table of Contents; January 1996; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

Letter from the Editor; January 1996; by Rennie; 1 Page(s)

Letters to the Editors; January 1996; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

50, 100 and 150 Years Ago; January 1996; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Listening to Culture; January 1996; by Stix; 2 Page(s)

Psychiatry takes a leaf from anthropology

Changing Their Image; January 1996; by Mukerjee; 1 Page(s)

On a cool October evening, troops of female journalists congregated at the august New York Academy of Sciences in Manhattan to appraise a group of blushing male scientists.

Star Dreck; January 1996; by Powell; 1 Page(s)

Conjuring images of "meteor storms" in bad science-fiction movies, the map below includes 7,800 of the larger man-made objects-including dead satellites-that are circling the earth.

Strange Places; January 1996; by Powell; 2 Page(s)

An astronomical breakthrough reveals an odd new world

Virtual Pollution; January 1996; by Nemecek; 1 Page(s)

Computers modeling the environment yield surprising results

Anti Gravity: Into the Wild Green Yonder; January 1996; by Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

The test of a first-rate intelligence, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote between drinks, is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Resisting Resistance; January 1996; by Beardsley; 1 Page(s)

Experts worldwide mobilize against drug-resistant germs

Colorectal Cancer Mortality Among Men; January 1996; by Doyle; 1 Page(s)

A million people worldwide, about 145,000 of them in the U.S., will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer this year.

The World According to RNA; January 1996; by Horgan; 2 Page(s)

Experiments lend support to the leading theory of life's origin

Rubbed Out with the Quantum Eraser; January 1996; by Yam; 2 Page(s)

Making quantum information reappear

Return of the Red Wolf; January 1996; by Nemecek; 2 Page(s)

Controversy over taxonomy endangers protection efforts

Flying Blind; January 1996; by Wallich; 1 Page(s)

In an era when Congress may ask schoolchildren to skip lunch to help balance the budget, it sounds eminently reasonable that bureaucrats at arcane federal agencies such as the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) should share in the general pain.

Return of the Breeder; January 1996; by Zorpette; 1 Page(s)

Engineers are trying to teach an old reactor new tricks

Making Free Software Pay; January 1996; by Browning; 1 Page(s)

The Internet creates an alternative economics of innovation

Freewheeling; January 1996; by Seife; 1 Page(s)

Most people would think that a wheelchair with "legs" makes about as much sense as a fish with a bicycle.

Light over Matter; January 1996; by Gibbs; 2 Page(s)

All mass-produced computer chips are etched from disks of silicon using flashes of light, projected through stencils, to draw circuit patterns.

The Midnight Hour; January 1996; by Abate; 2 Page(s)

Japan ventures onto the Net in the dark of night

Playing Slartibartfast with Fractals; January 1996; by Gibbs; 2 Page(s)

Most computer artists use high-tech tools but old-fashioned techniques, such as painting with electronic brushes, sculpting with virtual chisels and altering with digital versions of darkroom tricks.

Profile: Joseph Rotblat; January 1996; by Landau; 2 Page(s)

From Fission Research to a Prize for Peace

The Real Threat of Nuclear Smuggling; January 1996; by Williams, Woessner; 5 Page(s)

Although many widely publicized incidents have been staged or overblown, the dangers of even a single successful diversion are too great to ignore

Caloric Restriction and Aging; January 1996; by Weindruch; 7 Page(s)

Eat less, but be sure to have enough protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. This prescription does wonders for the health and longevity of rodents. Might it help humans as well?

Technology and Economics in the Semiconductor Industry; January 1996; by Hutcheson, Hutcheson; 7 Page(s)

Although the days of runaway growth may be numbered, their passing may force chipmakers to offer more variety

Neural Networks for Vertebrate Locomotion; January 1996; by Grillner; 6 Page(s)

The motions animals use to swim, run and fly are controlled by specialized neural networks. For a jawless fish known as the lamprey, the circuitry has been worked out

Cleaning Up the River Rhine; January 1996; by Malle; 6 Page(s)

Intensive international efforts are reclaiming the most important river in Europe

The Evolution of Continental Crust; January 1996; by Taylor, McLennan; 6 Page(s)

The high-standing continents owe their existence to the earth's long history of plate-tectonic activity

Working Elephants; January 1996; by Schmidt; 6 Page(s)

They earn their keep in Asia by providing an ecologically benign way to harvest forests

Explaining Everything; January 1996; by Mukerjee; 7 Page(s)

A new symmetry, duality, is changing the way physicists think about fundamental particles - or strings. It is also leading the way to a Theory of Everything

The Amateur Scientist; January 1996; by Carlson; 2 Page(s)

Recording Nature's Sounds

Mathematical Recreations; January 1996; by Stewart; 2 Page(s)

Mother Worm's Blanket

Reviews; January 1996; by Sozou, Hayles; 4 Page(s)

Reviews

Commentaries: Wonders - Head Start on the 20th Century.; January 1996; by Morrison; 2 Page(s)

As the millenium approaches, there is an irresistible impulse to look back and review the exhilarating twists and turns of scientific progress over the past 100 years.

Commentaries: Connections - Breakfast Thoughts; January 1996; by Burke; 2 Page(s)

I was rinsing dishes at the kitchen sink the other morning and thinking about this column when it occured to me that what I was doing was (like everything, if you look enough) a perfect example of the strange way things in the modern world are linked by events that happened along the great web of change.

Essay; January 1996; by de Duve; 1 Page(s)

The Constraints of Chance