Alternative Automobile Engines
Requirements for cleaner and more efficient engines have stimulated a search for alternatives to the conventional spark-ignition engine. So far the defects of the alternative engines are clearer than the virtues...
Features
The Chemical Differentiation of Nerve Cells
The development of the intricate network of nerve cells that makes up the nervous system requires each cell to "choose" a transmitter substance appropriate to its specific connections with other cells...
The Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays
A small number of fast particles from space are more energetic than the particles produced by the largest man-made accelerators. They are revealed by the showers of other particles they create in the air...
Nighttime Images of the Earth from Space
An unusual aspect of the earth is revealed in pictures recorded at midnight by U.S. Air Force weather satellites. The brightest lights on the dark side of the planet are giant waste-gas flares...
Learning and Memory in Bees
A bee is able to learn quickly and to remember for long periods the color and the odor of flowers that yield nectar or pollen. Now the neural basis of this programmed behavior is being elucidated...
Synthetic-Membrane Technology
Thin films of cross-linked polymers can separate molecules according to size, charge or other properties. The synthetic membranes can be applied to such industrial tasks as waste treatment and desalination...
The Kiwi
New Zealand, where this flightless bird lives today, had no mammals for 80 million years. In filling ecological niches that would have been occupied by the mammals the bird evolved mammalian characteristics...
Computer Poker
The familiar card game has interested mathematicians, economists and psychologists as a model of decision-making in the real world. It is now serving as a vehicle for investigations in computer science...
Departments
50 and 100 Years Ago, July 1978
Science and the Citizen, July 1978
- Letters
Letters to the Editors, July 1978
- Recommended
Books, July 1978
- Mathematical Recreation
Mathematical Games, July 1978
- Amateur Scientist
The Amateur Scientist, July 1978
- Departments
The Authors, July 1978
Bibliography, July 1978
