Jan/Feb 1999 Table of Contents

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COLUMNS
Physica • Nota Bene
From classical chemistry to superstrings, effective notation can shape the very development of a discipline
HANS CHRISTIAN VON BAEYER

Anecdotal Evidence • Speed Demons
Easy to exaggerate and devilishly hard to establish, animal speed records are often nothing more than running jokes
MIKE MAY

ESSAYS & COMMENT
Suffer The Innocents
International economic sanctions can inflict more deaths than warfare, particularly among children
RICHARD M. GARFIELD

FEATURES
Cover Story • A Woman's Curse
Why do cultures the world over treat menstruating women as taboo? An anthropologist offers a new answer—and a challenge to Western ideas about contraception
MEREDITH F. SMALL

Patent Absurdities
Private interests are carving up our intellectual legacy—grabbing seeds, software and even the human genome
SETH SHULMAN

The Rarest Element
Water and other liquids, relative anomalies in the universe, harbor an ocean of mysteries
SIDNEY PERKOWITZ

REVIEWS
The Unknown and the Unknowable
Exploring the boundaries of scientific knowledge
JOSEPH F. TRAUB

Books in Brief • Time Sheets
PLUS: The story of blood; Polaroid man, Edwin Land

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

Peer Review
Letters from Readers

Working Hypotheses • Competing for the Technological Edge
RODNEY W. NICHOLS

Quanta
The Hole the World is Watching, Mind Over Mouse, By a Hair, Pox Populi, Q-bits

Jan/Feb 1999

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