Scientific American Magazine Vol 280 Issue 4

Scientific American Magazine

Volume 280, Issue 4

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Features

Embryonic Stem Cells for Medicine

Cells able to generate virtually all other cell types have recently been isolated. One day they could help repair a wide variety of damaged tissues

Roger A. Pedersen

Encapsulated Cells as Therapy

An emerging approach to treating disease combines living cells with plastic membranes that shield the cells from immune attack

Michael J. Lysaght, Patrick Aebischer

Skin: The First Tissue-Engineered Products

Last year the first living, tissue-engineered skin product became commercially available--and a second is expected to be on the market within a few months. Top researchers from each of the two companies involved tell how their products came to be

Tissue Engineering: The Challenges Ahead

The obstacles to building new organs from cells and synthetic polymers are daunting but surmountable

Robert S. Langer, Joseph P. Vacanti

Alan Turing's Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science

Well known for the machine, test and thesis that bear his name, the British genius also anticipated neural-network computers and "hypercomputation"

B. Jack Copeland, Diane Proudfoot

The Revival of Colored Cotton

James M. Vreeland Jr.

Not Just Fun and Games

Best known for inventing the game of Life, John H. Conway is adept at finding the theorems hidden in simple puzzles

Mark Alpert

Is Space Finite?

Conventional wisdom says the universe is infinite. But it could be finite, merely giving the illusion of infinity. Upcoming measurements may finally answer this ancient question

Glenn D. Starkman, Jean-Pierre Luminet, Jeffrey R. Weeks

Departments

Errata

50, 100 And 150 Years Ago: Before Plate Tectonics, Early Submarine and Fastest Worldwide Commerce

FACING AN ILL WIND

Diamond Reflections

Watch the Watchers

A New Eye Opens on the Cosmos

Detecting "Hot" Clouds

Tangling with Topology

The Editors Recommend, April 1999

Circumnavigators All

CONNECTIONS

Working Knowledge on The Flight of the Frisbee

Attack of the Robo-Editor

JAPAN FIELDS A BIG LEAGUE LIGHT GATHERER

HEALTH CARE COSTS

TAKING BALLISTICS BY STORM

MUTATIONS GALORE

WAITING FOR THE SUPERCAR

AESTHETIC SCIENCE

A BUG'S LIFT

Letters

The Promise of Tissue Engineering

IN BRIEF

WHITEOUT

A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS OF SOLITUDE

A PROBING PRELUDE