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March-April 2026

Volume: 114 Number: 2

A deep photographic exposure captures a time-lapsed view of 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object and only the third large one confirmed to have passed through our Solar System from elsewhere. 3I/ATLAS has a bright dust tail (color enhanced in this image) that is typical of comets. However, the prior two interstellar objects were quite different, showing the range of small bodies in the universe. The first interstellar object detected, 1I/ʻOumuamua, did not have a dust tail but had unexpected accelerations not caused by gravity that were too strong to be from forces created by radiation. As Darryl Z. Seligman describes in “The Discovery of Dark Comets,” studying this strange interstellar object inspired him and his colleagues to take a closer look at comets in the Solar System that also seem to defy standard definition, and which might belong to an entirely new astronomical category. (Cover image by Dan Bartlett.)

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  • September-October - 2002 - Volume: 90 - Number: 5

    September-October 2002

    Volume: 90 Number: 5

    • "Observing the Beginning of Time," by Craig J. Hogan

    • "Ethnoclimatology in the Andes," by Benjamin S. Orlove, John C. H. Chiang and Mark A. Cane

    • "Deep-Ocean Life Where Oxygen Is Scarce," by Lisa A. Levin

    • "Protein Folding and Misfolding," by Jonathan King, Cameron Haase-Pettingell and David Gossard

    • "Gardening in Space," by David E. H. Jones

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  • July-August - 2002 - Volume: 90 - Number: 4

    July-August 2002

    Volume: 90 Number: 4

    • "Serendipitous Radiation Monitors," by Robert L. Fleischer

    • "The Evolutionary Ecology of Escherichia coli," by Valeria Souza, Amanda Castillo and Luis Eguiarte

    • "Cluster Dynamics: Fast Reactions and Coulomb Explosion," by Lutz Poth, Eric S. Wisniewski and A. Welford Castleman, Jr.

    • "Protein Structures: From Famine to Feast," by Helen M. Berman, David S. Goodsell and Philip Bourne

    • "Greek Astronomy and the Medieval Arabic Tradition," by George Saliba

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  • May-June - 2002 - Volume: 90 - Number: 3

    May-June 2002

    Volume: 90 Number: 3

    • "The Global Transport of Dust," by Dale W. Griffin, Christina A. Kellogg, Virginia H. Garrison and Eugene A. Shinn

    • "Why We See What We Do," by Dale Purves, R. Beau Lotto and Surajit Nundy

    • "Traffic Crashes," by Leonard Evans

    • "Hybridization and Extinction," by Donald A. Levin

    • "Quantum Identity" by Peter Pesic

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  • March-April - 2002 - Volume: 90 - Number: 2

    March-April 2002

    Volume: 90 Number: 2

    • "Adaptive Radiation of Darwin's Finches," by Peter R. Grant and B. Rosemary Grant

    • "Free-Floating Planets and Stellar Clusters," by Jarrod Hurley and Michael Shara

    • "The Rise and Fall of Rudist Reefs," by Claudia Johnson

    • "Manatees, Bioacoustics and Boats," by Edmund R. Gerstein

    • "Computers, Paradoxes and the Foundations of Mathematics," by Gregory J. Chaitin

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  • January-February - 2002 - Volume: 90 - Number: 1

    January-February 2002

    Volume: 90 Number: 1

    • "The Eurasian Arctic During the Last Ice Age," by Martin J. Siegert, Julian A. Dowdeswell, John-Inge Svendsen and Anders Elverhøi

    • "Newborn Screening for Metabolic Diseases," by David S. Millington

    • "Tides and the Biosphere of Europa," by Richard Greenberg

    • "The Kolam Tradition," by Marcia Ascher

    • "Probing the Depths of Crater Lake," by Douglas W. Larson (Biology)

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  • November-December - 2001 - Volume: 89 - Number: 6

    November-December 2001

    Volume: 89 Number: 6

    • "The Formation and Evolution of the Milky Way," by Cristina Chiappini

    • "Spintronics," by Sankar Das Sarma

    • "Chaos on the Quantum Scale," by Mason A. Porter, Richard L. Liboff

    • "The Challenge of Siphonous Green Algae," by Peter S. Vroom and Celia M. Smith

    • "Health and Human Society," by Clyde Hertzman

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  • September-October - 2001 - Volume: 89 - Number: 5

    September-October 2001

    Volume: 89 Number: 5

    • "Microspheres, Photonic Atoms and the Physics of Nothing," by Stephen Arnold

    • "Pathogens, Host-Cell Invasion and Disease," by Erich Gulbins and Florian Lang

    • "Life After Death in the Deep Sea," by Richard A. Lutz, Timothy M. Shank and Robert Evans

    • "An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere," by Armand H. Delsemme

    • "The Shape of the Universe: Ten Possibilities," by Colin Adams and Joey Shapiro

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  • July-August - 2001 - Volume: 89 - Number: 4

    July-August 2001

    Volume: 89 Number: 4

    • "Protostars," by Thomas Greene

    • "Iris Recognition," by John Daugman

    • "The MAX Phases: Unique New Carbide and Nitride Materials," by Michel W. Barsoum and Tamer El-Raghy

    • "The Nature of Emotions," by Robert Plutchik

    • "Science and Uncertainty in Habitat Conservation Planning," by Laura Watchman, Martha Groom and John D. Perrine

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  • May-June - 2001 - Volume: 89 - Number: 3

    May-June 2001

    Volume: 89 Number: 3

    • "How Were the Comets Made?" by Joseph A. Nuth III

    • "Preserving Salmon Biodiversity," by Phillip S. Levin and Michael H. Schiewe

    • "Combing Chromosomes," by John Herrick and Aaron Bensimon

    • "Probing Gas Hydrate Deposits," by Robert L. Kleinberg and Peter G. Brewer

    • "Alfalfa," by Michael P. Russelle

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  • March-April - 2001 - Volume: 89 - Number: 2

    March-April 2001

    Volume: 89 Number: 2

    • "Gene Therapy for Pain," by Jay Yang and Christopher L. Wu

    • "Thermoelectric Clathrates," by George S. Nolas and Glen A. Slack

    • "Protecting Ourselves from Food," by Paul W. Sherman and Samuel M. Flaxman

    • "Biocavity Lasers," by Paul Gourley and Darryl Sasaki

    • "Ecology of Transgenic Crops," by Michelle Marvier

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