Understanding the AIDS Pandemic
Mathematical models help to reveal how the AIDS virus infects individuals and communities. They sometimes produce results that upset simple intuition
Features
Biological Roles of Nitric Oxide
This previously elusive and obscure chemical is proving to be of vital physiological significance. Nitric oxide may be the first of a novel class of neurotransmitters
Blind Spots
Investigating how the visual system compensates for gaps in perception is helping researchers to elucidate how the brain processes images
Binary Optics
This marriage of optics and microelectronics has already produced useful lenses one fortieth the thickness of this page and arrays of 10,000 telescopes each the diameter of a human hair
Why American Songbirds are Vanishing
An avian chorus still heralds the beginning of spring in North America, but the number of singers has declined sharply of late. The trend will be difficult to reverse
Heisenberg, Uncertainty and the Quantum Revolution
At 32, Werner Heisenberg was one of the youngest scientists to receive the Nobel Prize. Ambition and fierce competitiveness inspired him to formulate one of the best-known principles of science
Eloquent Remains
Nucleic acids and proteins trapped in ancient mummies and still more ancient bones can serve as time capsules of history. Molecular biologists are beginning to unlock their secrets.
Departments
50 and 100 Years Ago: May 1992
Better Care, Less Care
Is it History or just E-Mail?
Forbidden Light
Born Yesterday
Life in a Test Tube?
Mutable Mutation
Trying Transmutation
Japan, Cold Fusion and Lyndon LaRouche
The Builder of Bridges
Planetary Nebulae
Electric Car Pool
Relative Lightweights
Frothing a Raindrop
Demonic Toxin
Business at Rio
Village Pharmacy
Watching the Death of a Star
- Letters
Letters to the Editors, May 1992
- Recommended
Book Reviews, May 1992
- Departments
Overcoming the Short-Term Syndrome
Metaphor in the Language of Science