Features

• Scientific American 50

  Flu preparedness, flexible electronics and stem cells all star in our fourth annual salute to the research, business and policy leaders of technology

  The Editors   | December 1, 2005  |

• Inside the Mind of a Savant

  Kim Peek possesses one of the most extraordinary memories ever recorded. Until we can explain his abilities, we cannot pretend to understand human cognition

  Darold A. Treffert and Daniel D. Christensen   | December 1, 2005  |

• An ECHO of Black Holes

  Sound waves in a fluid behave uncannily like light waves in space. Black holes even have acoustic counterparts. Could spacetime literally be a kind of fluid, like the ether of pre-Einsteinian physics?

  Theodore A. Jacobson and Renaud Parentani   | December 1, 2005  | 1

• Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste

  Fast-neutron reactors could extract much more energy from recycled nuclear fuel, minimize the risks of weapons proliferation and markedly reduce the time nuclear waste must be isolated

  William H. Hannum, Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford   | December 1, 2005  | 4

• Sick of Poverty

  New studiessuggest that the stress of being poor has a staggeringly harmful influence on health

  Robert Sapolsky   | December 1, 2005  |

• Getting a Leg Up on Land

  Recent fossil discoveries cast light on the evolution of four-limbed animals from fish

  Jennifer A. Clack   | December 1, 2005  |

• Tackling Malaria

  Interventions available today could lead to decisive gains in prevention and treatment--;if only the world would apply them

  Claire Panosian Dunavan   | December 1, 2005  |

• Wormhole

  Patrick Merrell   | December 1, 2005  |