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Surprisingly Modern Neandertals • National Medal of Technology QUARK SOUP CERN cooks up a new state of matter see page 16 APRIL 2000 $4.95 www.sciam.com QUANTUM Teleportation The Future of Travel? Or of Computing? Of Mice and Mensa Genetic formula for a smarter mouse Brown Dwarfs Stars that fizzled fill the galaxy Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc. Volume 282 Contents April 2000 Number 4 C O V E R S T O RY 50 Quantum Teleportation Anton Zeilinger SPACE CHANNEL/PHILIP SAUNDERS The “spooky action at a distance” of quantum mechanics makes possible the science-fiction dream of teleportation—a way to make objects disappear from one place and reappear at another. It has already been demonstrated with photons. Yet the greatest application of teleportation may be in computing. 62 Building a Brainier Mouse Joe Z. Tsien To genetically engineer a smarter mouse, scientists assembled some of the molecular components of learning and memory. Understanding Clinical Trials 69 Justin A. Zivin The journey from initial medical research to the bottle in your family’s medicine cabinet is complex, time-consuming and expensive. Can the clinical trial process be refined? Monitoring Earth’s Vital Signs 92 Michael D. King and David D. Herring A new NASA satellite— one of a fleet called the Earth Observing System— uses five state-ofthe-art sensors to better diagnose the planet’s health from the sky. The Discovery of Brown Dwarfs 76 Gibor Basri Less massive than stars but more massive than planets, brown dwarfs were long assumed to be rare. New sky surveys, however, show that in our galaxy the objects may be as common80 as stars. The Aleutian Kayak George B. Dyson The Aleuts built these small boats for hunters on the open ocean. The sophisticated design is still not entirely understood. Copyright 2000 Scientific American, Inc. TRENDS IN PALEOANTHROPOLOGY 98 Who Were the Neandertals? 84 Kate Wong, staff writer Controversies rage over how much they were like us behaviorally and biologically. With contributions by Erik Trinkaus, Cidália Duarte, João Zilhão, Francesco d’Errico and Fred H. Smith. 3 Contents April 2000 Volume 282 Number 4 46 T H E N AT I O N A L M E D A L O F T E C H N O L O G Y A r e p o r t o n t h e w i n n e r s o f t h e n a t i o n’s h i g h e s t a w a r d f o r i n n o v a t i o n RAY KURZWEIL ROBERT A. SWANSON FROM THE EDITORS ROBERT W. TAYLOR 8 LETTERS TO THE EDITORS 10 50, 100 & 150 YEARS AGO 14 PROFILE 36 String theorist and physics star Brian Greene. TECHNOLOGY & B USINESS 42 114 BOOKS Matt Ridley’s Genome offers a celebrity tour of human DNA, according to Dean H. Hamer. With more from The Editors Recommend. WONDERS, by the Morrisons 117 The long-lost lions of Los Angeles. CONNECTIONS, by James Burke 118 ANTI GRAVITY, by Steve Mirsky 120 END POINT 120 N E W S & A N A LY S I S What the “Frankenfoods” deal means for biotech. CYBER VIEW GLEN JACOB CULLER 16 CERN’s little piece of the big bang. 16 44 How deadly viruses enter the U.S. 20 16 Who wants privacy? Refrigerating that leftover mammoth. 24 WORKING KNOWLEDGE 108 How soap and detergents work. THE AMATEUR SCIENTIST by Shawn Carlson A furnace in a thermos. MATHEMATICAL RECREATIONS