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Genes are often invoked to account for why high blood pressure is so common among African-Americans. Yet the rates are low in Africans. This discrepancy demonstrates how genes and the environment interact
By Richard S. Cooper, Charles N. Rotimi and Ryk Ward
Light Sails
By Henry M. Harris
Air-Breathing Engines
By Charles R. McClinton
Highways of Light
By Leik N. Myrabo
Space Tethers
By Robert L. Forward and Robert P. Hoyt
Compact Nuclear Rockets
By James R. Powell
The Way to Go in Space
To go farther into space, humans will first have to figure out how to get there cheaply and more efficiently.
Ideas are not in short supply
By Tim Beardsley
High Blood Pressure and the Slave Trade
Reaching for the Stars
By Stephanie D. Leifer
Supersoft X-ray Stars and Supernovae
Several years ago astronomers came across a new type of star that spews out unusually low energy x-rays. These so-called supersoft sources are now thought to be white dwarf stars that cannibalize their stellar companions and then, in many cases, explode
By Peter Kahabka, Edward P. J. van den Heuvel and Saul A. Rappaport
Cichlids of the Rift Lakes
The extraordinary diversity of cichlid fishes challenges entrenched ideas of how quickly new species can arise
By Melanie L. J. Stiassny and Axel Meyer
A Multifractal Walk down Wall Street
The geometry that describes the shape of coastlines and the patterns of galaxies also elucidates how stock prices soar and plummet
By Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Departments
How Limbs Develop
From the Editor
Worm Gets the Early Bird
Letters
Letters
Erratum
Recommended
Reviews: The Narrative of Numbers
Reviews: The Narrative of Numbers
Anti Gravity
This is only a Test
50, 100 & 150 Years Ago
50, 100 and 150 Years Ago: Research Money, Panama Canal, and New Whaling Ground
Wonders
Noah's Flood?
Profile
Bones to Pick
Mathematical Recreation
Origami Tessellations
Amateur Scientist
Tackling the Triple Point
Science and the Citizen
Attack of the Fire Ants
Taming Maxwell's Demon
By the Numbers
Tranquility, Turmoil and Chaos for International Business