Sep/Oct 1996 Table of Contents

View Articles
NOTE: Fine art illustrations are viewable only in the PDF of the full issue(downloadable at right).

COLUMNS
Field Notes • Sang Froid
The supercooled 'slumber' of the coldest mammal on earth
BRIAN M. BARNES

ESSAYS & COMMENT
Cover Story • Faulty Premise
After decades of effort and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, short-term earthquake prediction could be a disaster in the making
MIDORI ASHIDA

FEATURES
The Fire Next Time
Will the National Ignition Facility finally take the critical step toward controlled fusion energy?
WILLIAM J. HOGAN, ROGER O. BANGERTER and CHARLES P. VERDON

Secrets of the Heart
An intimate study of blood flow shows why the best thing for your heart is a good beating
MAIR ZAMIR

Casting the Net
The origins of the Internet, like the messages it carries, are diffuse and fragmentary. But one fall day in 1969 all the pieces came together.
KATIE HAFNER and MATTHEW LYON

REVIEWS
Quite Contrary
Was 'Typhoid Mary' Mallon a symbol of the threats to individual liberty or a necessary sacrifice to public health?
Ann K. Finkbeiner

Books in Brief • Chaotic Features of Microreality
PLUS: Ancient Egyptian medicine; how we age
LAURENCE A. MARSCHALL

DEPARTMENTS
Initial Conditions • Editor's Notebook
PETER G. BROWN

Peer Review
Letters from Readers

Working Hypotheses • Oaks and Acorns
RODNEY W. NICHOLS

Quanta
Space telescopes; spinning core of the earth; avian infanticide; Ebola virus in ancient Greece?

Strange Matter
Newly Uncovered Studies from Tobacco, Inc.
ROZ CHAST

Sep/Oct 1996

Download Issue

(PDF 500K)