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On the Cover

January-February 2006 Volume 94, Number 1

A .22-caliber bullet easily penetrates a telephone directory perched on a stool, but the gunshot's effect on the surrounding environment is the photographer's actual target. Turbulence and shock waves can be revealed by specialized high-speed photography technology combined with classical imaging techniques, as Gary S. Settles describes in "High-speed Imaging of Shock Waves, Explosions and Gunshots." ...

FEATURE ARTICLES

A Bright Future for Subwavelength Light Sources *

Tineke Thio

Generating tiny points of light for such things as storing data on optical disks is aided by a new theory involving evanescent waves

Ancient Lakes of the Sahara *

Kevin White, David Mattingly

The Sahara was once a savannah teeming with life. The story of how the climate changed, and how humans coped, is still being unraveled

First Life *

Michael Russell

Billions of years ago, deep under the ocean, the pores and pockets in minerals that surrounded warm, alkaline springs catalyzed the beginning of life

High-speed Imaging of Shock Waves, Explosions and Gunshots

Gary Settles

New digital video technology, combined with some classic imaging techniques, reveals shock waves as never before

Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Steven Simon, André Bouville, Charles Land

Exposures 50 years ago still have health implications today that will continue into the future

* access restricted to members and subscribers

SCIENTISTS’ BOOKSHELF

Reading the Masters

Victor Katz

A review of The Calculus Gallery: Masterpieces from Newton to Lebesgue, by William Dunham and Musings of the Masters: An Anthology of Mathematical Reflections, edited by Raymond G. Ayoub. Exemplary essays on important results in calculus and the thoughts of well-known research mathematicians on topics outside their areas of specialty

See all book reviews for this issue.