The Case for Electric Vehicles
New technological developments have put practical electric cars within reach, but politics may slow the shift away from internal-combustion engines
Features
Immunity and the Invertebrates
The fabulously complex immune systems of humans and other mammals evolved over hundreds of millions of years -- in sometimes surprising ways
Sharks and the Origins of Vertebrate Immunity
Sharks, which have existed for as many as 450 million years, offer glimpses of a distant period in the evolution of the immune system
Quantum Seeing in the Dark
Quantum optics demonstrates the existence of interaction-free measurements: the detection of objects without light—or anything else —ever hitting them
Global Climatic Change on Mars
Today a frozen world, Mars at one time; may have had more temperate conditions, with flowing rivers, thawing seas, melting glaciers and, perhaps, abundant life
Can China Feed Itself?
Some surprisingly reasonable policy changes would enable the world's largest nation to produce more food for its 1.2 billion citizens
Dyslexia
A new model of this reading disorder emphasizes defects in the language-processing rather than the visual system. It explains why some very smart people have trouble learning to read...
Rock Art in Southern Africa
Paintings and engravings made by ancestors of the San peoples encode the history and culture of a society thousands of years old
Departments
- From the Editor
An Honest Quantum Con Job
- Letters
Letters to the Editors, November 1996
- Recommended
Reviews and Commentaries—The World on a Platter
- Anti Gravity
On Presidents and King
- 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago
50, 100 and 150 Years Ago: Vitamin C Deficiency, London to Brighton Run and Issues with the Telegraph
- Wonders
Giant against Giant in the Dark
- In Brief
In Brief, November 1996
- Profile
Starting with a Clean Slate
- Mathematical Recreation
A Guide to Computer Dating
- Amateur Scientist
Much Ado about Nothing
- Science and the Citizen
Hot Jupiters
Multicultural Studies
Science with Brass
Different Strokes
- By the Numbers
Global Forest Cover
- Working Knowledge
Television Ratings—Working Knowledge
- Connections
What Goes Around Comes Around
- Cyber View
The Rosetta Hack
- Field Notes
Bring Me a Shrubbery
- Technology and Business
Pressure to Change
Needles in A Cold War Haystack
Pump It Up
Molecular Molds
Pictures Worth a Thousand Cameras
- In Focus
The Price of Silence
