Scientific American Magazine Vol 268 Issue 2

Scientific American Magazine

Volume 268, Issue 2

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Features

Environmental Change and Violent Conflict

Growing scarcities of renewable resources can contribute to social instability and civil strife

Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, Jeffrey H. Boutwell, George W. Rathjens

Resistance in High-Temperature Superconductors

Researchers are beginning to see how the motion of magnetic vortices in these materials can interfere with the flow of current

David J. Bishop, Peter L. Gammel, David A. Huse

Zinc Fingers

They play a key part in regulating the activity of genes in many species, from yeast to humans Fewer than 10 years ago no one knew they existed

Daniela Rhodes, Aaron Klug

How Should Chemists Think?

Chemists can create natural molecules by unnatural means. Or they can make beautiful structures never seen before. Which should be their grail?

Roald Hoffmann

A Technology of Kinetic Art

Delicate interplay of weights and balances choreographs the author's sculptures so that the gentlest gusts of air set their parts in motion

George Rickey

Breaching the Blood-Brain Barrier

Development of a therapy for meningitis has revealed how bacteria penetrate the blood-brain barrier. This knowledge may help physicians treat other disorders of the brain

Elaine Tuomanen

Redeeming Charles Babbage's Mechanical Computer

A successful effort to build a working, three-ton Babbage calculating engine suggests that history has misjudged the pioneer of automatic computing

Doron D. Swade

Selling to Survive

Tim Beardsley

Departments

Letters to the Editors, February 1993

50 and 100 Years Ago: Skeletal Evidence for Walking in Circles When Lost

Livable Planets

What if They Don't Have Radios?

COBE Corroborated

Faux Fullerenes

Genes and Crime

The Artist, the Physicist and the Waterfall

Electronic Envelopes?

Making Waves

The Physicist as a Young Businessman

Zip Code Breakers

Surreal Science

Lightning Lure

Learning Companies

Shell Shocked

Soul of a New Economic Idea?

A Partly True Story

The Preservation of the Planet

Germany and the Bomb: New Evidence