文档介绍：SEXUAL EQUALITY IN 7000 . • MECHANICAL HAND CALCULATOR
RFID:
The Promise
and Perils
of Talkative Chips
JANUARY 2004 $
A Physics Theory
Shatters Space
and Time
THE CANNIBALISTIC
MILKY WAY
SCHIZOPHRENIA
THE RISKS OF AN
EARLIER SPRING
COPYRIGHT 2003 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.
january 2004
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Volume 290 Number 1 features
ASTRONOMY
38 Our Growing, Breathing Galaxy
BY BART P. WAKKER AND PHILIPP RICHTER
Long assumed to be a relic of the distant past, the Milky Way turns out to be a dynamic, evolving object.
NEURAL PHARMACOLOGY
48 Decoding Schizophrenia
BY DANIEL C. JAVITT AND JOSEPH T. COYLE
Insight into signaling in the brain of people with schizophrenia offers new hope for therapy.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
56 RFID: A Key to Automating Everything
BY ROY WANT
Radio-frequency identification tags and readers stand poised to take
over many processes now plished by human toil.
PHYSICS
66 Atoms of Space and Time
BY LEE SMOLIN
If the amazing theory of loop quantum gravity is correct, space and
time are ultimately grainy, not smooth.
ARCHAEOLOGY
76 Women and Men at Çatalhöyük
BY IAN HODDER
The largest known Neolithic settlement yields clues about the roles
played by the sexes in early agricultural societies.
ENVIRONMENT
84 Spring Forward
BY DANIEL GROSSMAN
As temperatures rise earlier in spring, interdependent species
in a number of ecosystems shift dangerously out of sync.
INVENTION 92 The Curta calculator
92 The Curious History of the First Pocket Calculator
BY CLIFF STOLL
Called the Curta, it saved its inventor’s life when he was trapped
in a Nazi concentration camp.
ENTIFIC AMERICAN 3
COPYRIGHT 2003 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.
departmentsSCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Volume 290 Number 1
6 SA Perspectives
Can biologists be trusted?
8 How to Contact Us
8 On the Web 30 104
10 Letters
14 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago 32 Innovations
16 News Scan A sweet, yeasty ap