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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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  • January-February - 2001 - Volume: 89 - Number: 1

    January-February 2001

    Volume: 89 Number: 1

    • "The Growing Threat of Biological Weapons," by Steven M. Block

    • "Superflares and Giant Planets," by Eric P. Rubenstein

    • "Vertebrate Biology in Microgravity," by Richard J. Wassersug

    • "In Defense of Robert Andrews Millikan," by David Goodstein

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  • November-December - 2000 - Volume: 88 - Number: 6

    November-December 2000

    Volume: 88 Number: 6

    • "White Dwarf Stars," by Steven Kawaler and Michael Dahlstrom

    • "Gene Chips and Functional Genomics," by Hisham Hamadeh and Cynthia Afshari

    • "The Power of Sound," by Steven L. Garrett and Scott Backhaus

    • "Scientific Publication Trends and the Developing World," by Antonio Gálvez, Mercedes Maqueda, Manuel Martínez-Bueno and Eva Valdivia

    • "The Case of Agent Gorbachev," by Kristie Macrakis

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  • September-October - 2000 - Volume: 88 - Number: 5

    September-October 2000

    Volume: 88 Number: 5

    • "The Search for QCD Exotics," by Alex R. Dzierba, Curtis A. Meyer and Eric S. Swanson

    • "Pollination of Cacti in the Sonoran Desert," by Theodore H. Fleming

    • "A New Urban Ecology," by James P. Collins, Ann Kinzig, Nancy B. Grimm, William F. Fagan, Diane Hope, Jianguo Wu and Elizabeth Borer

    • "Brain Plasticity and Recovery from Stroke," by Nina P. Azari and Rüdiger J. Seitz

    • "Andrew Ellicott Douglass and the Big Trees," by Donald J. McGraw

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  • July-August - 2000 - Volume: 88 - Number: 4

    July-August 2000

    Volume: 88 Number: 4

    • "Depression and the Birth and Death of Brain Cells," by Barry L. Jacobs, Henriette van Praag and Fred H. Gage

    • "Testing Ecological Patterns," by James G. Sanderson

    • "The Heart of the Milky Way," by Fulvio Melia

    • "Mathematical Devices for Getting a Fair Share," by Theodore P. Hill

    • "Measuring Success in Conservation," by Leah R. Gerber, Douglas P. DeMaster and Simona Perry Roberts

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  • May-June - 2000 - Volume: 88 - Number: 3

    May-June 2000

    Volume: 88 Number: 3

    • "Reengineering the Electric Grid," by Thomas J. Overbye

    • "Biomolecules and Nanotechnology," by David S. Goodsell

    • "Vision and the Coding of Natural Images," by Bruno A. Olshausen and David J. Field

    • "Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World," by Theodore G. Schurr

    • "Superconducting Cosmic Strings,," by Alejandro Gangui

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  • March-April - 2000 - Volume: 88 - Number: 2

    March-April 2000

    Volume: 88 Number: 2

    • "Tracking Down a Cheating Gene," by Barry Ganetzky

    • "Simulating Solar Prominences in the Laboratory," by Paul M. Bellan

    • "What Do Animals Think About Numbers?" by Marc D. Hauser

    • "Foams and Honeycombs," by Erica G. Klarreich

    • "Electroshock Revisited," by Max Fink

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  • January-February - 2000 - Volume: 88 - Number: 1

    January-February 2000

    Volume: 88 Number: 1

    • "Impacts of Industrial Animal Production on Rivers and Estuaries," by Michael A. Mallin

    • "Connecting Materials Science and Music in Steel Drums," by Lawrence E. Murr and Everaldo Ferreyra Tello

    • "Fishing Down Aquatic Food Webs," by Daniel Pauly, Villy Christensen, Rainer Froese and Maria Lourdes Palomares

    • "The Galactic Environment of the Sun," by Priscilla Frisch

    • "Fifty Years of Radiocarbon Dating," by R. E. Taylor

    • "The Women Scientists of Bologna," by Maria Cieslak-Golonka and Bruno Morten

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  • November-December - 1999 - Volume: 87 - Number: 6

    November-December 1999

    Volume: 87 Number: 6

    • "Antarctica's Lake Vostok," by Martin J. Siegert

    • "Prokaryotes," by Michael Hoppert and Frank Mayer

    • "Water, Migration and the Serengeti Ecosystem," by Eric Wolanski, Emmanuel Gereta, Markus Borner and Simon Mduma

    • "How Will Climate Change Affect Human Health?," by Pim Martens

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  • September-October - 1999 - Volume: 87 - Number: 5

    September-October 1999

    Volume: 87 Number: 5

    • "Cliffs as Natural Refuges," by Douglas W. Larson (Plant Ecology), Uta Matthes and Peter E. Kelly

    • "Deconstructing the Milky Way Galaxy," by Henry Freudenreich

    • "Stingless-Bee Communication," by James C. Nieh

    • "Conformal Mappings," by Steven G. Krantz

    • "Ancient DNA," by George Poinar, Jr.

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  • July-August - 1999 - Volume: 87 - Number: 4

    July-August 1999

    Volume: 87 Number: 4

    • "Rapid Climate Change," by Kendrick Taylor

    • "DNA Vaccines as Cancer Treatment," by Edward P. Cohen, Edwin F. de Zoeten and Morton Schatzman

    • "Polarized Starlight and the Handedness of Life," by Stuart Clark

    • "The Mystery of Ticklish Laughter," by Christine R. Harris

    • "Human Embryonic Stem-Cell Research: Science and Ethics," by Shirley Wright

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