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On the Cover

September-October 2006 Volume 94, Number 5

In 1992, astronomers made the first confirmed detection of planets around a star other than the Sun. Strangely, these two "exoplanets" were orbiting a pulsar—the remnant of a supernova explosion. ...

FEATURE ARTICLES

Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island

Terry Hunt

New evidence points to an alternative explanation for a civilization's collapse

Algae-Dominated Reefs *

Peter Vroom, Kimberly Page, Jean Kenyon, Russell Brainard

Numerous reports suggest that reefs must be dominated by coral to be healthy, but many thriving reefs depend more on algae

Extrasolar Planetary Systems *

Gregory P. Laughlin

Observations of distant worlds are beginning to reveal how planetary systems form and evolve

The Zebrafish Exposed *

Ralf Dahm

"See-through" mutants may hold the key to unraveling the mysteries of embryonic development

Modifying Light *

Joseph Castellano

Ubiquitous today, liquid-crystal displays are the outgrowth of more than a century of experimentation and development

* access restricted to members and subscribers

SCIENTISTS’ BOOKSHELF

A Look at the Entire Human Past

Craig Stanford

A review of Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade. An overview of what we know about the record of ancestry and ethnicity that stretches from us back to the people of the Neolithic

See all book reviews for this issue.