Modern Icebreakers
They have evolved rapidly because of economic pressures to maintain commerce in icebound waters. They feature unusual hull designs and propulsion systems, and most of them are currently built in Finland...
Features
Io
The solar system's most active volcanic world is a moon of Jupiter whose geyser like eruptions and massive lava flows yield evidence of exotic volcanic fluids. Their source of energy is gravitational...
An Early Iron Age Farm Community in Central Europe
Excavations at a site in Bavaria unearth clues to an economy of 1000 to 800 B. C. in which farmers were just beginning to exchange their surplus for the work of specialized craftsmen
The DNA Helix and How it is Read
X-ray analysis of crystals of three types of double-helical DNA molecule leads to the realization that base-sequence information can be stored in the local structure of the helix
Quantum Gravity
In a quantum-mechanical theory of gravitation the very geometry of space and time would be subject to continual fluctuations, and even the distinction between past and future might become blurred...
Prey Switching in a Simple Ecosystem
On the island of Newfoundland, which has few species of mammals, lynxes preyed on snowshoe hares until the hare population "crashed." Then the lynxes switched to caribou calves, and the cycle continues...
The Aerodynamics of Human-Powered Land Vehicles
A bicycle and its rider are strongly impeded by their resistance to the Row of air. Aerodynamic stratagems have brought vehicles that can go 60 mlies per hour on a level road without assistance...
The Interpretation of Visual Illusions
The visual system apparently organizes ambiguous retinal images according to rules of inference that exploit certain regularities in the external world
Departments
50 and 100 Years Ago: December 1983
Science and the Citizen, December 1983
- Letters
Letters to the Editor, December 1983
- Recommended
Books, December 1983
- Amateur Scientist
The Amateur Scientist, December 1983
- Departments
The Authors, December 1983
Computer Recreations, December 1983
Annual Index 1983
Bibliography, December 1983
