Scientific American, August 19, 2007

Scientific American Digital
In this issue:
NNOVATIONS
Data Center in a Box
By M. Mitchell Waldrop
A shipping container stuffed with servers could usher in the era of cloud computing

PUBLIC POLICY
Race in a Bottle
By Jonathan Kahn
Drugmakers are eager to develop medicines targeted at ethnic groups, but so far they have made poor choices based on unsound science

NEUROSCIENCE
Windows on the Mind
By Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde
Once scorned as nervous tics, certain tiny, unconscious flicks of the eyes now turn out to underpin much of our ability to see. These movements may even re?veal subliminal thoughts

MODELING
Predicting Wildfires
By Mark Finney and Mark Fischetti and Patricia Andrews
Fires are burning more acres than ever. Where will the next blazes ignite? Can we prevent them? Should we?

BIOLOGY
The Shark's Electric Sense
By R. Douglas Fields
An astonishingly sensitive detector of electric fields helps sharks zero in on prey

AGRICULTURE
Future Farming: A Return to Roots?
By Cindy M. Cox and Jerry D. Glover and John P. Reganold
Large-scale agriculture would become more sustainable if major crop plants lived for years and built deep root systems

ENVIRONMENT
The Physical Science behind Climate Change
By James Haywood and Martin R. Manning and Philip Mote and Robert Colman and William Collins
Why are climatologists so highly confident that human activities are dangerously warming the earth?