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On the Cover

March-April 2013 Volume 101, Number 2

Abstract mathematical surfaces can be hard to visualize -- but they are much easier to grasp mentally when they can be picked up and moved around. Mathematician sarah-marie belcastro began rendering surfaces in knitting when she was in graduate school. ...

FEATURE ARTICLES

Not Just Going with the Flow *

Frank Fish, George Lauder

Aquatic animals can modify their fluid environment to improve efficiency

Adventures in Mathematical Knitting

sarah-marie belcastro

Rendering mathematical surfaces and objects in tactile form requires both time and creativity

Athletics and Herbal Supplements

Do current products enhance athletes’ health and performance?

* access restricted to members and subscribers

SCIENTISTS’ BOOKSHELF

Imperial Imagery

A review of Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment, by Daniela Bleichmar. Naturalists and artists on Spanish expeditions to the New World created thousands of botanical images; this well-researched book explores an archive of them

See all book reviews for this issue.

DEPARTMENTS

FROM THE EDITOR

Opportunity Calling

Interacting with readers and authors

David Schoonmaker

MACROSCOPE

The Music of Math Games

Video games that provide good mathematics learning should look to the piano as a model

COMPUTING SCIENCE

First Links in the Markov Chain

Probability and poetry were unlikely partners in the creation of a computational tool

MARGINALIA

Mining the Boreal North

Resource extraction decisions are not simply about wilderness preservation or development

ENGINEERING

An Anthropomorphic Model*

If seeing is believing, feeling may be understanding

POETRY

Among Cosmologists

EARTH ART

Earth art, even when removed, can indelibly change nature in the mind's eye

Robert Louis Chianese

SIGHTINGS

A New Looking Glass: Historic Harvard Plates

Photographic plates of astronomical images provide data to researchers in the present

Catherine Clabby

SCIENCE OBSERVER

The Beetle Breaking Point

A novel limit controls the size of an animal weapon, the beetle horn

Elemental Energy

New polymers get their power from moisture

Fenella Saunders

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

The Smallest Cell

A Colorful History

Significance of Significance

Mapping Traditions

SIGMA XI TODAY (PDF)

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American Scientist Classics

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