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    Features

    The Quiet Path to Technological Preeminence

    The U. S. government is relying on ambitious research projects to spur commercial competitiveness. Instead it should speed the commercialization of new technologies wherever they may be developed

    By Robert B. Reich

    The Mitotic Spindle

    Just how this spindle-shaped biological machine parcels the DNA of a dividing cell into two equal clusters is only now becoming clear. The spindle turns out to be as dynamic as it is accurate

    By J. Richard McIntosh and Kent L. McDonald

    The Stanford Linear Collider

    The world's first linear collider is up and running. Stanford's "Z° factory" allows physicists to measure the mass and lifetime of the Z° mediator of the electroweak force with unprecedented precision

    By John R. Rees

    Carbon Monoxide and the Burning Earth

    Measurements of atmospheric carbon monoxide from space have found large amounts of the gas in unexpected places. Tropical burning rivals transportation and industry as a source of carbon monoxide

    By Henry G. Reichle, Reginald E. Newell and Wolfgang Seiler

    Waterweed Invasions

    Vast vegetative mats of the two most noxious aquatic weeds plague the world's waterways. Investigations of the water hyacinth and the kariba weed are leading to new programs for weed control

    By Spencer C. H. Barrett

    Scanned-Probe Microscopes

    By examining a surface at very close range with a probe that may be just a single atom across, they can resolve features and properties on a scale that eludes other microscopes

    By H. Kumar Wickramasinghe

    The Origins of Indo-European Languages

    Almost all European languages are members of a single family. The author contends that they spread not by conquest, as has been thought, but along with the peaceful diffusion of agriculture

    By Colin Renfrew

    Departments

    • 50 and 100 Years Ago: October 1989

    • Land-Locked

    • Who's Minding the Store?

    • Batteries not Included

    • Cosmic Quarrel

    • Low-Zone

    • Out of its Field

    • Heavy-Ion Fusion

    • Diluvian Tremens

    • Spacecraft on a String

    • First Impressions

    • Trans-Kingdom Sex

    • Sudden Impact

    • Glass Menageries

    • Status Symbol

    • The Cycling of Calcium as an Intracellular Messenger

    • Light Talk

    • Homebody

    • Good Intentions

    • Letters

      Letters to the Editors, October 1989

    • Recommended

      Books, October 1989

    • Amateur Scientist

      The Amateur Scientist, October 1989

    • Departments

      The Analytical Economist: The Cost of Capital

    • Computer Recreations, October 1989

    • Essay: The Sorry State of Science Education

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    October 1989

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