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Reports on the future of Native Americans in the U.S. Details on the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.; Number of tribes recognized by the government; Reasons why Native Americans are moving to cities including Chicago, Illinois; Changes seen in Native American education; The need to reconnect with communities and culture; Growth of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe in Connecticut; Status of the relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. government.

Offers a look at undersea exploration as of August 2004. Success of international programs to explore the oceans; Efforts of marine biologists in a group called the Census of Marine Life to catalog all the species of the sea by 2010; Investigation of the history and the structure of the Earth by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program; Efforts of marine scientists to understand how the oceans impact the world; Explorations of the autonomous underwater vehicle in an attempt to map the ocean bottom; Development of new underwater technologies; Study of the abyssal plain; Depletion of the deep-water ecosystems; Discovery of two species of marine worm called Osedax; Statement that human activity, from overfishing to global warming and pollution, are irrevocably changing the oceans.

Presents a look at three medical specialties, anesthesiology, radiology, and pathology, which the magazine focused on when ranking "America's Best Hospitals." Comments from specialists in each medical field about their job; Description of each of the three medical fields; Role in the hospital of each of the three medical fields; Estimated amount of surgeries per year in the United States; Different types of procedures in which the three medical fields are applied to; New technology being used in each of the three medical fields.

Attends a mock prison riot which is staged annually for elite prison tactical teams from across the United States. Three days of freeing hostages, quelling riots and subdue unruly inmates using carefully choreographed tactics and the latest corrections gear available; Need for intimidation and a clear display of overwhelming force; How the growing prison population makes this training vital; Description of one mock exercise; How most of the technology is low tech as the client is corrections officials with limited budgets and real-world concerns; Description of some high technology items; How corrections personnel need to be assertive not aggressive; How the exercise can be scary for both sides; Restraint that is noticeable for its lack of injury; How the corrections officers view the Abu Ghraib prison abuse.

Discusses research into the origins of war, and the debate over whether war is a cultural invention or an innate part of human behavior. Report that some anthropologists are now questioning the assertion by Margaret Mead in 1940 that not all cultures engage in warfare; Claim by ethnologist Raymond Kelly that warfare first began as populations divided into distinct groups; Claim by archeologist Steven LeBlanc that even prehistoric people and extant tribes considered peaceful engaged in warfare; Finding among primatologists Jane Goodall and Richard Wrangham that chimpanzees engage in a type of warfare; Finding that both chimps and humans go to war in response to environmental stress and competition over resources; Role of propaganda in warfare; Speculation that people will increasingly battle for limited resources such as clean air, arable land and fresh water; Report that evidence suggests that a previously warlike people can become peaceful.

Comments on reports by scientists warning that fish stocks are overexploited and offers the opinion that modest changes in fishing practices and management could reverse misuse and restore the health of the oceans. Popularity of seafood in the United States; Technology in the fishing industry; Reference to a report by fisheries scientists Ransom Myers and Boris Worm showing that the abundance of large ocean fish has plummeted 90 percent since the industrialization of fishing; Problems faced by the ocean ecosystem because of the overexploitation of fish stocks; Diminution of fish size; What heedless consumption of fish could do for the already small fish supply; List of sustainable seafood consumers should concentrate on eating; Role of commercial fishers in saving the industry; Lack of interest the public and politicians have taken in fish conservation; Reference to a book entitled 'In a Perfect Ocean,' by Daniel Pauly.

Nearly 50 years after his death and a century after the then unknown physicist started challenging doctrine and stretching brains with his ideas, Albert Einstein remains not just scientifically relevant but a multipurpose icon as well. If anything, his stature has grown over the decades, fed by a steady stream of books, pop-culture references, and posthumous appearances in commercials and on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and most anything else that will sit still long enough to be stamped with a photo and a quote. But the more we see that image, the less we seem to know about the real Einstein and the work that made him famous. Thanks in large measure to an ambitious publishing effort, a much more nuanced view of the greatest scientist of the 20th century is taking shape. The Einstein Papers Project, now in its eighth volume, will ultimately publish some 14,000 original documents in a planned 25 volumes. Early drafts of famous papers are allowing historians to track the development of his ideas (he didn't pluck them fully formed from the cosmos after all) and his voluminous correspondence reveals a real human being. As a powerful new exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York shows, the Einstein that emerges is at once darker, richer, and infinitely more fascinating than the friendly icon we thought we knew. Einstein himself attributed his success to a slow start. "A normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time," he once wrote. "But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had grown up." According to family tradition, recorded by Albert's sister Maja in an unpublished biography, her brother was unusual from the start. Though he showed a remarkable ability to focus on difficult tasks like building houses of cards, he was slow to develop and didn't start speaking until at least the age of 2 1/2. INSET: The Activist.

Comments on hoaxes, which are lies which catch the attention of the public. Author's skepticism of psychics, including Sylvia Browne; Question of whether we are more or less vulnerable to hoaxes in the information age; Hoaxes that have come out after September 11, 2001; Mention of other possible deceptions, including an article by Alan Sokal and the book 'Sylvia Browne's Book of Dreams,' by Sylvia Browne; Background on the perpetration of hoaxes.

Reports that scientists are uncovering the step-by-step changes in form and function that produced humanity and the diversity of life. Evolution as an everyday phenomenon as a fact of biology; The theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin; New research regarding evolution, including that many creatures appear quite suddenly; The coexistence between mammals and dinosaurs; The progressive, dramatic changes in body structure of mammals; Criticism of evolution.

Discusses research in artificial intelligence and the use of developmental theory in robot building. Problems in building humanoid robots that can think; Example of the robot Kismet; Topics of the social image of humanoid robots, practical applications, design of robots, and machine consciousness; Speculation on how intelligent robotics will affect humanity. INSET: Explorers, surgeons, and garbage men.

Focuses on global warming, as of February 2001. Problems, including wildfires and crop failures, which are a result of warmer temperatures; Inevitability of a global climate change; Efforts of environmentalists and businesses to create solutions, ranging from global carbon-dioxide-emissions taxes to caulking leaks in natural gas pipelines; Concerns regarding greenhouse gases.

Focuses on a child's development of the sense of self. View that children have personalities at birth; Role of parents in shaping character; Effect of genetics and experiences in self-regulation on behavior; How genes influence personality; Importance of a mother in development; Reference to studies on parenting. INSETS: Is Birth Order Destiny?, by Erica Check;Lending a Helping Hand.

Reports on the environmental aspects of Earth in light of the thirtieth anniversary of Earth Day. Realization by activists that individual actions on behalf of environment pale beside the actions of big business and big government; Differing ethos between the first Earth Day in 1970 and the day in 2000; Success of Environmental Defense Fund; Topic of `greenwashing,' which is when companies advertise themselves as environmentally friendly even though they have poor environmental records.

Discusses the efforts of the biotechnology industry to decipher the human genome. Outlook for the completion of the Human Genome Project and its effect on medical science; Concerns about the unethical use of genetic information; How genetic information may shape views on the nature of humanity.

Discusses efforts by zoologists to conserve endangered animals and preserve genetic diversity. Zoo-based breeding programs having the goal of returning animals to nature; Information on animals such as the orangutan, Florida panther, rockhopper penguin, lowland gorilla, Indian rhinoceros, giant panda, and the cheetah.

Focuses on September 1999 Hurricane Floyd and its impact on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Precautions and preparations in response to predictions; Evacuations; Flooding in North Carolina and New Jersey; Meteorologists' assessment of future hurricane risk; Coastal population; Formation and progress of Hurricane Floyd; Conditions that contribute to hurricane formation; Computer models in prediction.

Discusses the use of cosmetic surgery on young patients. Question of age limitations on elective surgery; Appeal of cosmetic maintenance surgery; Statistics; Promotion of cosmetic surgery by physicians; Surgery costs and procedures; How cosmetic surgery has become commonplace. INSET: Death By Nip And Tuck, by Thomas Hayden and Jill Jordan Sieder.

Considers the impact of El Nino on world weather. Definition of El Nino as a warm current of water that appears off Peru every two to seven years; How oceanic hot spots drive the world's atmospheric circulation; Usual concentration of effect near the equator; Federal Emergency Management's October 1997 summit to discuss its possible impact on the United States.

The article describes the efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers Task Force Guardian program designed to repair levees, floodwalls and other damaged structures in and around New Orleans, Louisiana in teh wake of Hurricane Katrina. It also discusses other programs and task forces set up to come up with solutions for safety and reconstruction of the city. Emphasis is given to the construction of new armored levees that could withstand a Category 5 storm.

The article focuses on the work of Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News Channel (FNC). The man who would become known as a ferocious Republican media strategist and creator of the right-leaning 24-hour FNC got his first job in television as an assistant on "The Mike Douglas Show." The article reviews the development of Ailes's career as a media consultant to corporations and Republican politicians. Ailes's aggressive strategies have been paying off for FNC's owner, News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch.

Examines the findings of biological research on the evolution of species. Controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution in schools; Details of the outcome of research on the process of evolution; Influence of scientist Sean Carroll on the study of evolution; Efforts of scientists to explain wide variations in species despite largely unchanged genetic patterns; Impact of molecular biology on the development of evolutionary theory; Comments of Carroll on the relationship between religious belief and scientific theory.

Discusses the importance of an early earning system to protect people from tsunamis. Focus on Phil Cummins, a seismologist in Australia who recently stumbled on evidence that a Sumatran tsunami was all but inevitable; Efforts by Cummins and others to establish a warning system for the Indian Ocean; Description of the evidence found by Cummins; Highlights from his career; Other tsunamis and earthquakes from recent history; Cummins' belief that there is still danger for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean; Description of how an early earning system would work. INSET: ADVANCE WARNING.

This article focuses on the concept of dissent and protest in cultural history. Writer Henry David Thoreau for several years neglected to pay his poll tax (the rough equivalent of today's income tax) to protest government spending that supported slavery and the Mexican War. America is a country -- and a culture -- founded on dissent. But to suggest that it is a nation of dissenters is to disregard broad swaths of American history and political and cultural development. Dissent helped shape America, but America is also a nation built on cohesion and the enforcement of common goals and shared values. Those two competing impulses, which drove the Massachusetts Bay colonists to flee the religious restrictions of England and then establish one of the most strictly conformist societies in history, appear again and again throughout history. The high points of dissent are obvious in America's early years, from Roger Williams's departure from Massachusetts Bay to Rhode Island, to the Boston Tea Party, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and Susan B. Anthony and the fight for women's suffrage, abolition, and temperance.

Focuses on the changes and conditions in the planet and oceans that created a home to complex animals and plants. Discoveries in fossil beds showing the evolutionary groundwork for the Cambrian explosion; Milestones in life's history from 600 million years ago to 500 million years ago; Details of the Doushantuo formation, a Chinese fossil bed; Discussion of why it took 56 million years for the animal diversity that is seen in Burgess Shale to occur; The extinction of the Ediacarans; Factors that could have sped up evolution; View of earth science researcher Nicholas Butterfield about a slower evolutionary clock and animal predation.

Describes the work of paleontologist Simon Conway Morris on the Cambrian animals in the fossil deposits of British Columbia. Consideration of Morris's book 'Life's Solutions: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe; His interpretation of evolutionary history; Integration of religion and evolution; How Morris is admired by his colleagues; Opposition from Morris towards the genetic modification of plants and animals; Rejection of the ideals of creationism.

Reports on how plastic products are trashing oceans. The studies and efforts of Charles Moore, captain of the boat Alguita; How plastic pollution can change entire ecosystems; How plastic works its way through the food web; Effects on marine life; The MARPOL ban on the dumping of plastics; Response of the American Plastics Council; Increased use of biodegradable packaging.

Discusses the efforts of the American Museum of Natural History in New York to assemble a universal tree of life to classify life on Earth. Taxonomy used by Charles Darwin; Importance of cross-species comparisons; Place of bacteria, eucarya, archaea and other types of life on the model; Practical uses of the model. INSET: Searching for roots.

Focuses on the challenge of unlocking an exotic form of solidified natural gas called gas hydrate, potentially symbolizing the start to a new era of Arctic fuel production. Description of gas hydrate, a strange hybrid of fire and ice; Worldwide energy value of gas hydrate reserves compared with other fossil fuels; Mention of research at the Mallik site in the Arctic permafrost of Canada; Difficulties facing the project, including transporting natural gas; Skepticism about the potential of gas hydrates; Outlook. INSET: A free refill?.

Discusses plans for the development of brownfields, tracts of land formerly used by industry in the United States. How engineers can remove contaminants; Plan to develop the Fresh Kills landfill in New York City.

Discusses the contributions of science to the prevention of terrorism in the wake of terrorist attacks against the United States. Role of technology in war; Views of John Marburger, science adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush; Outlook for government funding for terror prevention research; Moral and ethical aspects of using science for political means.

Reports on the efforts of drug developers to produce antibiotics that are effective against resistant bacteria. How scientists are turning to advances in genomics, molecular biology and chemical synthesis to develop the first new antibiotics in a generation; Use of the viruses known as phages to kill bacteria; Opinion that, rather than eradicating pathogens, the goal should be to favor milder strains.

Analyzes the physical effects of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States at New York City's World Trade Center. Details of the damages; The challenges which lie beneath the fallen complex, including collapsed subway stations and tunnels; Concerns over the stability of a defensive perimeter around the World Trade Center's basements; Question of what to do after the debris is cleared.

Reports on the collapse of marine ecosystems around the world. Details of a study on this collapse in the journal 'Science'; Effects of fishing on marine ecosystems; Depletion of fish.

Focuses on photographaphy in outer space. Efforts of Edwin Hubble to photograph distant stars and planets; View that photography has played a central role in the development of modern astronomy; Photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope; View that the work of Hubble and others helped support Einstein's general theory of relativity and formed the basis for the big-bang theory.

Focuses on efforts by genetic researchers to map the human genome in the year 2000. Formation of the Human Genome Project (HGP) to undertake the task; Technological advancements that have helped to make reading genetic bases easier; Ability of HGP to stay ahead of its research schedule; Competition from Celera Genomics to complete sequencing first; Hope for collaboration between competitors.

Presents excerpts from the book `Living Planet,' scheduled to be released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in September 1999. Identification and significance of some of the 237 areas identified by WWF as distinct ecological regions representing the range of the Earth's threatened biological diversity.

Reports the discovery of evidence of a solar system around the planet Upsilon Andromedae. Background to the April 1999 announcement of the discovery by astronomers Geoffrey Marcy and Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University in California; Identification of collaborators; Details of the discovery and its implications. INSET: Something New Under Another Sun.

Focuses on research on how chimpanzees and deaf babies communicate with hand gestures. Why researchers believe that the human brain is wired for gestural communication; The use of American Sign Language; The question of how and when language originated; How deaf children can invent sophisticated grammar; Comment of developmental psychologist Elizabeth Bates of the University of California, San Diego on gesturing.

Discusses menopause and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The effects of estrogen on cells; Alleviating symptoms of menopause; Pros and cons of HRT; Choices in HRT; Selective estrogen receptor modulators; The risk of breast cancer. INSET: To HRT or Not to HRT?.

Focuses on use of sugar in the United States, and the book `Sugar Busters!' The diet book's concept of insulin resistance; The biological mechanisms of glucose, or sugar, and insulin; Implication of insulin resistance in a range of diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, and stroke; The role of sugar in heart disease; Mention of the findings of William Grant, research scientist; Sugar intake recommendation from the World Health Organization. INSET: Sugar & spice: Sweetness has its price.

Focuses on the effects of the 1998 El Nino on the weather in the United States. Mud slides, eroding hillsides, and torrential rains in California; Tornadoes in Florida; Balmy temperatures in North Dakota; The regions expected to have a drier-than-normal spring.