November 1996
Scientific American Magazine

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

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

From the Editors, including Masthead; November 1996; by Rennie; 1 Page(s)

An Honest Quantum Con Job

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

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

In Focus: The Price of Silence; November 1996; by Gibbs; 2 Page(s)

Does profit-minded secrecy retard scientific progress?

Field Notes: Bring Me a Shrubbery; November 1996; by Beardsley; 1 Page(s)

I am on an experimental farm near Syracuse in upstate New York, standing next to dense thickets of a tall woody shrub that is bereft of any edible fruit and would certainly lose in an arboreal beauty contest.

Hot Jupiters; November 1996; by Schneider; 2 Page(s)

Why do some giant planets hug their stars?

In Brief; November 1996; by Leutwyler; 3 Page(s)

Making Voting a Science; Sickle Cell Successes; Affirmative Reaction; Treating the Common Cold; Jurassic Jawbreakers; Nitrates and Lymphoma; Tracing True 3-D Images; In the Swim; Killing Fields; Making Taxol in Bulk

Multicultural Studies; November 1996; by Horgan; 2 Page(s)

Rates of depression vary widely throughout the world

Science with Brass; November 1996; by Mukerjee; 3 Page(s)

Unusual movements from tiny metal balls

By the Numbers: Global Forest Cover; November 1996; by Doyle; 1 Page(s)

Forests remove carbon dioxide from the air, conserve soil and water, and are home to a variety of species.

Different Strokes; November 1996; by Stix; 2 Page(s)

A book intimates why we gossip

Anti Gravity: On Presidents and King; November 1996; by Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

If familiarity does indeed breed contempt, there are two things you are no doubt sick of by now: the hoarse windiness of Bill Clinton and the grievous monotone of Bob Dole.

Cyber View; November 1996; by Browning; 1 Page(s)

Step by slow step, computers are breaking down the barriers of language.

Pressure to Change; November 1996; by Gibbs; 2 Page(s)

Supercritical carbon dioxide to toughen common materials

Needles in a Cold War Haystack; November 1996; by Dupont, Lardner; 2 Page(s)

Pointless secrecy obstructs a potential economic boost

Pump it Up; November 1996; by Sinha; 2 Page(s)

A new implant sustains heart patients waiting for transplants

Molecular Molds; November 1996; by Wallich; 2 Page(s)

Plastic replicas mimic complex molecules

Pictures Worth a Thousand Cameras; November 1996; by Stix; 1 Page(s)

Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" depicts a world in which a substance called ice-nine causes water molecules to freeze solid.

Profile: Thereza Imanishi-Kari; November 1996; by Beardsley; 2 Page(s)

Starting with a Clean Slate

The Case for Electric Vehicles; November 1996; by Sperling; 6 Page(s)

New technological developments have put practical electric cars within reach, but politics may slow the shift away from internal-combustion engines

Immunity and the Invertebrates; November 1996; by Beck, Habicht; 5 Page(s)

The fabulously complex immune systems of humans and other mammals evolved over hundreds of millions of years - in sometimes surprising ways

Sharks and the Origins of Vertebrate Immunity; November 1996; by Litman; 5 Page(s)

Sharks, which have existed for as many as 450 million years, offer glimpses of a distant period in the evolution of the immune system.

Quantum Seeing in the Dark; November 1996; by Kwiat, Weinfurter, Zeilinger; 7 Page(s)

Quantum optics demonstrates the existence of interaction-free measurements: the detection of objects without light - or anything else - ever hitting them

Global Climatic Change on Mars; November 1996; by Kargel, Strom; 9 Page(s)

Today a frozen world, Mars at one time may have had more temperate conditions, with flowing rivers, thawing seas, melting glaciers and, perhaps, abundant life

Can China Feed Itself?; November 1996; by Prosterman, Hanstad, Ping; 7 Page(s)

Some surprisingly reasonable policy changes would enable the world's largest nation to produce more food for its 1.2 billion citizens

Dyslexia; November 1996; by Shaywitz; 7 Page(s)

A new model of this reading disorder emphasizes defects in the language-processing rather than the visual system. It explains why some very smart people have trouble learning to read

Rock Art in Southern Africa; November 1996; by Solomon; 8 Page(s)

Paintings and engravings made by ancestors of the San peoples encode the history and culture of a society thousands of years old

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

Much Ado about Nothing

Mathematical Recreations; November 1996; by Stewart; 3 Page(s)

A Guide to Computer Dating

Reviews; November 1996; by Ferris, Zorpette, Polkinghorne, Powell; 5 Page(s)

Reviews

Commentary: Wonders - Giant against Giant in the Dark; November 1996; by Morrison; 2 Page(s)

Any seashore is an open frontier, a source of novelty as unceasing as the waves themselves.

Commentary: Connections - What Goes Around Comes Around; November 1996; by Burke; 2 Page(s)

Back in the dawn of time, I reported for the BBC whenever an "Apollo" lifted off.

Working Knowledge; November 1996; by Aust; 1 Page(s)

Television Ratings