Features

• A Split at the Core

  Physics is forcing the microchip industry to redesign its most lucrative products. That is bad news for software companies

  W. Wayt Gibbs   | November 1, 2004  |

• Holes in the Missile Shield

  The national missile defense now being deployed by the U.S. should be replaced with a more effective system

  Richard L. Garwin   | November 1, 2004  |

• Rebuilding Broken Hearts

  Biologists and engineers working together in the fledgling field of tissue engineering are within reach of one of their greatest goals: constructing a living human heart patch

  Smadar Cohen and Jonathan Leor   | November 1, 2004  |

• Black Hole Computers

  In keeping with the spirit of the age, researchers can think of the laws of physics as computer programs and the universe as a computer

  Seth Lloyd and Y. Jack Ng   | November 1, 2004  |

• Abrupt Climate Change

  Winter temperatures plummeting six degrees Celsius and sudden droughts scorching farmland around the globe are not just the stuff of scary movies. Such striking climate jumps have happened before--sometimes within a matter of years

  Richard B. Alley   | November 1, 2004  |

• Music and the Brain

  What is the secret of music's strange power? Seeking an answer, scientists are piecing together a picture of what happens in the brains of listeners and musicians

  Norman M. Weinberger   | November 1, 2004  |

• Computing at the Speed of Light

  Emerging ways to make photonic connections to electronic microchips may dramatically change the shape of computers in the decade ahead

  W. Wayt Gibbs   | November 1, 2004  |