Scientific American, September 2008

Privacy in an Age of Terabytes and Terror
The boundaries are shifting between public interest and "the right to be let alone."

Reflections on Privacy 2.0
Some issues that appear to be questions of privacy turn out to be matters of security or health policy.

Brave New World of Wiretapping
As telephone conversations migrate to the Internet, the government wants to listen in.

Tools of the Spy Trade
Night-vision cameras, biometric sensors and other gadgets already give snoops access to private spaces. Coming soon: palm-size "bug-bots."

How to Keep Secrets Safe
A versatile range of software solutions can protect the privacy of your information and online activities to any desired degree.

The End of Privacy?
Social-networking Web sites may be radically realigning what is considered public and private.

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Scientific American, August 2008

China's Children of Smoke
Epidemiologists find molecular clues to air pollution's impact on youngsters. Routine use of screening technologies to measure such biomarkers could, at least theoretically, identify people at risk from specific pollutants.

Facing the Freshwater Crisis
As demand for freshwater soars, global supplies are becoming unpredictable. Existing technologies could avert a water crisis but must be implemented soon.

Why Migraines Strike
Biologists finally are unraveling the medical mysteries of migraine, from aura to pain.

Quantum Computing with Ions
Researchers are taking the first steps toward building ultrapowerful computers that use individual atoms to perform calculations.

Bracing for a Solar Superstorm
A recurrence of the 1859 solar superstorm would be a cosmic Katrina, causing billions of dollars of damage to satellites, power grids and radio communications.

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Scientific American, July 2008

Traces of a Distant Past
Modern DNA furnishes an ever clearer picture of the multimillennial trek that our ancestors made from Africa all the way to the tip of South America, starting 60,000 years ago.

The Self-Organizing Quantum Universe
A new approach to the decades-old problem of quantum gravity shows how the building blocks of space and time pull themselves together.

New Jobs for Ancient Chaperones
With newly recognized roles in cancer and immunity, the heat shock proteins that normally protect cells against stress might become therapeutic allies.

Hands-on Computing
Multi-touch screens could improve collaboration without a mouse or keyboard.

No-Till: The Quiet Revolution
Because plowing degrades the land, farmers are increasingly turning to a more sustainable alternative.

The Neuroscience of Dance
Recent brain-imaging studies reveal some of the complex neural choreography behind our ability to dance.

Simple Groups at Play
A new set of problems challenges puzzle lovers to get acquainted with the tricky mathematical symmetries embodied in "sporadic simple groups."

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Scientific American, June 2008

The Ethics of Climate Change
When economists analyze how much to spend on global warming, they must weigh the value of our current prosperity against that of the diminished well-being of our grandchildren.

The Cosmic Origins of Time's Arrow
Maybe time's seemingly unvarying flow forward is a short-term fluke in a universe where the distant future and distant past look the same.

Gaining Ground on Breast Cancer
The newest targeted therapies help doctors to tailor effective treatments to individual patients.

Digital Image Forensics
Modern software makes image tampering easier but also enables new methods of detection.

What Is a Species?
Biologists still struggle with that fundamental but scientifically pivotal question.

The Tunguska Mystery
Finding a piece of the elusive cosmic body that devastated a Siberian forest a century ago could help save the earth in the centuries to come.

The Neurobiology of Trust
A small molecule that induces labor in pregnant women also exerts a pivotal influence every day on our inclination to trust strangers.

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Scientific American, May 2008

The Genesis of Planets
Theorists long imagined that the formation of young solar systems was a serene process with a stately progression, in which the eventual appearance of planets was a foregone conclusion. The latest evidence, however -- including observations of worlds circling other stars -- argues that planet formation is startlingly chaotic.

Regulating Evolution
Most animals share similar genes. The staggering diversity in their physical forms springs from switches in the DNA that govern where and when those genes are active.

Science 2.0
Is posting raw experimental data online, for all to see, a great tool or a great risk?

How Cells Clean House
Autophagy, a process that normally keeps cells in good working order, seems to be linked to aging and diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Hooked from the Fist Cigarette
Cigarette addiction can arise astonishingly fast. New research could help make quitting easier.

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Scientific American, April 2008

The Color of Plants on Other Worlds
If it isn't easy being green on Earth, where chlorophyll is well tuned to absorb most of the energy in our sun's yellow light, imagine the difficulties elsewhere in the galaxy. Plants growing on worlds around cooler, brighter or more tempestuous stars would need to rely on red, blue or even black pigments to survive. That insight offers astronomers new clues about what to look for in their search for extraterrestrial life.

Regrowing Human Limbs
The ability to regenerate lost body parts -- salamander-style -- could revolutionize the treatment of amputations and major wounds.

Rulers of Light
A kind of laser light called an optical frequency comb can make atomic clocks and other instruments much more precise.

The Doping Dilemma
Game theory suggests how to stop the pervasive abuse of drugs in cycling, baseball and other sports.

Detecting Nuclear Smuggling
Radiation monitors at U.S. ports cannot reliably detect highly enriched uranium, which onshore terrorists could assemble into a nuclear bomb.

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Scientific American, March 2008

The End of Cosmology?
Will the big bang be forgotten? The accelerating cosmic expansion is wiping away every trace of the universe's origin.

When Markets Beat the Polls
Internet-based financial markets may predict elections more reliably than polls do. They can augur future box-office returns and flu seasons, too.

White Matter Matters
Long regarded as passive support for cogitating neurons, the brain's white matter shows that it actively affects learning and mental illness.

The Limits of Quantum Computers
Futuristic quantum computers could be exceptionally fast at certain tasks, but for most problems they would only modestly outclass today's conventional machines.

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Scientific American, February 2008

The Future of Physics
The Discovery Machine.
The Coming Revolutions in Particle Physics.
Building the Next-Generation Collider.

The Unquiet Ice
Abundant liquid water discovered underneath the great polar ice sheets could catastrophically intensify the effects of global warming on the rise of sea level around the world.

RFID Powder
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags label all kinds of inventoried goods and speed commuters through toll plazas. Now tiny RFID components are being developed with a rather different aim: thwarting counterfeiters.

Your Cells Are My Cells
Many, perhaps all, people harbor a small number of cells from genetically different individuals -- from their mothers and, for women who have been pregnant, from their children. What in the world do these foreigners do in the body?

Building a Future on Science
Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel A. L. Nicolelis taps into the chatter of neurons to drive robotic prosthetics. Now he hopes to tap the potential of his country's population by building a network of "science cities."

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