Energy-Storage Systems
Energy reservoirs consisting of pumped water, compressed air, batteries and ways of storing heat and "cold" can do much to help coal, nuclear and solar energy replace substantial quantities of oil...
Features
Implantable Drug-Delivery Systems
Many therapeutic drugs are most effective when they are delivered into the bloodstream steadily. Such delivery can be accomplished by the surgical implantation of a drug pellet, a reservoir or a pump...
Gene Transplantation and the Analysis of Development
Purified genes microinjected into an amphibian oocyte can be "read" accurately and abundantly. The oocyte may serve as a living test tube for studying the molecular details of gene regulation in development...
Programming Languages
The nature of information processing has been transformed over the past 25 years by high-level programming languages, which provide a variety of mechanisms for encoding complex problems to be solved by computer...
The Neanderthals
They flourished from western Europe to central Asia between 75,000 and 35,000 years ago. The differences between them and later peoples are not as great as was once thought but still call for an explanation...
Electrical Responses Evoked from the Human Brain
Minute voltage shifts generated by the sensory regions of the brain can be recorded from the scalp. These recordings yield clues to the functioning of the human brain in health and neurological disease...
The Decay of the Vacuum
Near a superheavy atomic nucleus empty space may become unstable, with the result that matter and antimatter can be created without any input of energy. The process might soon be observed experimentally...
Tephra
Airborne fragments from an erupting volcano, known collectively as tephra, come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and compositions. The study of tephra deposits assists in the dating of ancient events...
Departments
50 and 100 Years Ago, December 1979
Science and the Citizen, December 1979
- Letters
Letters to the Editors, December 1979
- Recommended
Books, December 1979
- Mathematical Recreation
Mathematical Games, December 1979
- Amateur Scientist
The Amateur Scientist, December 1979
- Departments
The Authors, December 1979
Annual Index 1979
Bibliography, December 1979
