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Features

Population, Poverty and the Local Environment

As forests and rivers recede, a child's labor can become more valuable to parents, spurring a vicious cycle that traps families in poverty

By Partha S. Dasgupta

Sonoluminescence: Sound into Light

A bubble of air can focus acoustic energy a trillionfold to produce picosecond flashes of light. The mechanism eludes complete explanation

By Seth J. Putterman

Molecular Machines That Control Genes

The activities of our genes are tightly regulated by elaborate complexes of proteins that assemble on DNA. Perturbations in the normal operation of these assemblies can lead to disease

By Robert Tjian

Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity

Does some fine madness plague great artists? Several studies now show that creativity and mood disorders are linked

 
This article appears in the In-Depth Report Genius, Suicide and Mental Illness: Insights into a Deep Connection

By Kay Redfield Jamison

Masers in the Sky

Interstellar gas clouds produce intense, coherent microwaves. This radiation offers a glimpse of the size, content and distance of objects that may otherwise be invisible

By Moshe Elitzur

The History of Synthetic Testosterone

Testosterone has long been banned in sports as a performance-enhancing drug. This use may soon be accepted in medicine alongside other legitimate hormonal therapies

By John M. Hoberman and Charles E. Yesalis

The Mid-Cretaceous Superplume Episode

The earth has an erratic "heartbeat" that can release vast amounts of heat from deep within the planet. The latest pulse of the earth occurred 120 million years ago

By Roger L. Larson

Toward "Point One"

Gigabit chips are now in the laboratory. But the critical technology needed for manufacturing smaller circuits confronts diminishing returns

By Gary Stix

Departments

  • Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity [All-Access Subscribers Only]

  • Behind the Curve

  • Letters

    Errata

  • Letters to the Editors, February 1995

  • 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago

    50 and 100 Years Ago: Benefits of University Laboratories and Record Low Temperatures

  • Profile

    Strings and Gluons—The Seer Saw Them All

  • Amateur Scientist

    Producing Light from a Bubble of Air

  • Science and the Citizen

    Dangerous Sex

  • Putting Alzheimer's to the Tests

  • Global Warming Is Still a Hot Topic

  • Broken Dreamtime

  • Commanding Attention

  • Finessing Fermat, Again

  • Seeing How the Earth Moved

  • It's Getting Easier to Find a Date

  • Nothing Personal, You're Just Not My Type

  • Out of the Lab and into the Fire

  • No, Really, It Was This Big

  • Departments

    Once Upon a Time There Was a Theory

  • Scientists and their CD-ROMs

  • Technology and Business

    A Budgetary Storm is Brewing

  • Agents and Other Animals

  • The Chilling Wind of Copyright Law?

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