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March-April 2009 Volume 97, Number 2

The first transistor was a relatively monstrous device, about half an inch tall. Nowadays there can be up to a billion transistors on a tiny silicon chip, and hundreds of chips are fabricated simultaneously on a silicon wafer. ...

FEATURE ARTICLES

Real-time Flood Forecasting

Chintu Lai, Ting-Kuei Tsay, Chen-Ho Chien, I-Ling Wu

We’ve learned to predict typhoons. What is required to predict the floods they bring?

Knowing When to Stop

How to gamble if you must—the mathematics of optimal stopping

The Long-lived Transistor *

Robert W. Keyes

The basic unit of the computer revolution has changed in form, material and fabrication, but nothing has come along in half a century to displace it

A Cipher to Thomas Jefferson *

Lawren M. Smithline

A collection of decryption techniques and the analysis of various texts combine in the breaking of a 200-year-old code

* access restricted to members and subscribers

SCIENTISTS’ BOOKSHELF

Dr. Varmus Goes to Washington

Robert Cook-Deegan

A review of The Art and Politics of Science, by Harold Varmus. Varmus's engaging memoir deserves to be followed by a second volume, says Cook-Deegan

See all book reviews for this issue.

DEPARTMENTS

MACROSCOPE

The Blue Baby Syndromes

Did environment or infection cause a blood disorder in newborns?

COMPUTING SCIENCE

Writing Math on the Web

The Web would make a dandy blackboard if only we could scribble an equation

ENGINEERING

Tacoma Narrows Bridges*

Three bridges have connected mainland Washington with the Olympic Peninsula

MARGINALIA

The Squeeze Is On

How do molecules behave at extremely high pressure?

SIGHTINGS

A Little Space, Please

SciVis and InfoVis face off

SCIENCE OBSERVER

A Nuke on the Yukon?

Mini-nukes arrive at the regulatory gate. Will they get through?

DNA Research Commons Scaled Back

Concerned about violating DNA donor confidentiality, U.S. research agency sticks with decision to limit data exchange

Catherine Clabby

What's Wrong with this Picture?

A new project will make the effects of pollution in U.S. national parks impossible to miss

Anna Lena Phillips

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

Take That, Robots

A Knotty Writing Issue

A Chinese Hangul?

Seeking Heat

Rocket Mishaps

Winged Warning

SIGMA XI TODAY (PDF)

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