MACROSCOPE

The Man Behind the Curtain

Physics is not always the seamless subject that it pretends to be

Tony Rothman

COMPUTING SCIENCE

Bit Lit

With digitized text from five million books, one is never at a loss for words

Brian Hayes

ENGINEERING

Controlled Demolition*

Removing structures can require nearly as much planning as building them

Henry Petroski

MARGINALIA

Jefferson's Old Bones

Did the so-called father of American vertebrate paleontology believe in fossils?

Keith Thomson

SLIDE SHOW

The Romance of Ants

In this slide show we present the story of entomologist Corrie Moreau, told comic-book style

Alexandra Westrich, Matt Matcuk

ETHICS

Authorship Diplomacy

Cross-national differences complicate allocation of credit and responsibility

Melissa S. Anderson, Felly Chiteng Kot, Marta A. Shaw, Christine C. Lepkowski and Raymond G. De Vries

SIGHTINGS

Serious Science, Comic-Book Style

A myrmecological comic brings entomologist Corrie Moreau’s journey to life

Catherine Clabby

SCIENCE OBSERVER

Dying Generously

For some single-celled organisms, self-destruction is neighborly

Elsa Youngsteadt

Making Better Maps of Food Deserts

Neighborhoods with little or no access to healthful food can be located and studied using GIS mapping

Anna Lena Phillips

Paleogenomic Puzzles

DNA sequences of extinct hominins could rewrite human ancestry

Catherine Clabby

In the News

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

Travel to the Stars

Level-headed Peer Review

The Perfect Dome

Cave Controversy

SIGMA XI TODAY (PDF)