December 2002
Scientific American Magazine

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Cover; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Table of Contents; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

SA Perspectives: In Science We Trust; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Public confidence in scientific authority

Letters to the Editors; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

50, 100 and 150 Years Ago; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Fishy Sex; Expensive Scenery; TB Plague

How to Contact Us; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Under the Microscope; December 2002; by Daniel G. Dupont; 2 Page(s)

Will "sound science" weaken the Endangered Species Act?

Cretaceous Park; December 2002; by Sonya Senkowsky; 2 Page(s)

Cache of dino fossils turns up in an arctic reserve

Subduing Suppressors; December 2002; by Lisa Melton; 2 Page(s)

Silencing certain immune cells could defeat disease

Parched Turf Battle; December 2002; by Daniel Grossman; 2 Page(s)

Did climate changes cause civilizations to collapse?

Mendelmania Takes Off; December 2002; by Luba Vikhanski; 2 Page(s)

The ostracized father of genetics finally gets his day

Making Do; December 2002; by Gary Stix; 1 Page(s)

Third world naturalists cope with scarce resources

News Scan Briefs; December 2002; by Charles Choi, Tariq Malik, Sarah Graham; 2 Page(s)

Dentures Begone; Keyboard Cops; Nucleotide Nanotubes; The Nobel Prizes for 2002; Data Points: Crash Course; Brief Points

By the Numbers: Deinstitutionalization; December 2002; by Rodger Doyle; 1 Page(s)

Why a much maligned program still has life

Skeptic: The Captain Kirk Principle; December 2002; by Michael Shermer; 1 Page(s)

Intuition is the key to knowing without knowing how you know

Profile: Throwing Einstein for a Loop; December 2002; by Amanda Gefter; 2 Page(s)

Physicist Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara has developed a way to connect relativity with quantum theory - while making sure that cause still precedes effect

The Scientific American 50; December 2002; by Mark Alpert, Steven Ashley, Graham P. Collins, Carol Ezzell, Mark Fischetti, W. Wayt Gibbs, Mike May; 31 Page(s)

Our first annual celebration of visionaries from the worlds of research, industry and politics whose recent accomplishments point toward a brighter technological future for everyone

The Brightest Explosions in the Universe; December 2002; by Neil Gehrels, Luigi Piro and Peter J. T. Leonard; 8 Page(s)

Every time a gamma-ray burst goes off, a black hole is born

The Enigma of Huntington's Disease; December 2002; by Elena Cattaneo, Dorotea Rigamonti and Chiara Zuccato; 6 Page(s)

Nearly 10 years after scientists isolated the gene responsible for Huntington's, they are still searching for how it wreaks its devastation

On Thin Ice; December 2002; by Robert A. Bindschadler and Charles R. Bentley; 8 Page(s)

How soon humanity will have to move inland to escape rising seas depends in great part on how quickly West Antarctica's massive ice sheet shrinks. Scientists are finally beginning to agree on what controls the size of the sheet and its rate of disintegration

Food for Thought; December 2002; by William R. Leonard; 10 Page(s)

Dietary change was a driving force in human evolution

Order in Pollock's Chaos; December 2002; by Richard P. Taylor; 6 Page(s)

Computer analysis is helping to explain the appeal of Jackson Pollock's paintings. The artist's famous drips and swirls create fractal patterns, similar to those formed in nature by trees, clouds and coastlines

Working Knowledge: Superhot Dots; December 2002; by Mark Fischetti; 2 Page(s)

Ink-jet printing

Technicalities: Getting Real; December 2002; by Mark Alpert; 3 Page(s)

What's next in computer displays? Depth and shadows

Reviews: The Twisted Road to the Double Helix; December 2002; by Dean H. Hamer, Staff Editors; 2 Page(s)

A biography of the woman unfairly lost in the shadows of Watson and Crick. Also, The Editors Recommend

On the Web; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Puzzling Adventures: Plumbers; December 2002; by Dennis E. Shasha; 1 Page(s)

Find the blabbermouth

Anti Gravity: Members Only; December 2002; by Steve Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

A look at some recent research that could be described as organic

Ask the Experts; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

How does the Venus flytrap digest flies? How do rewritable CDs work?

Annual Index 2002; December 2002; by Staff Editor; 4 Page(s)

Fuzzy Logic; December 2002; by Roz Chast; 1 Page(s)

The Fine Print