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PLEASE STAND BY: THE NEW SHAPE OF TELEVISION • INTELLIGENCE AND GENES NASA astronaut describes SIX MONTHS IN MAY 1998 $4.95 Shannon Lucid peers out of Mir SPACE May 1998 FROM THE EDITORS Vo l u m e 2 7 8 Numb e r 5 46 Six Months on Mir Shannon W. Lucid 8 LETTERS TO THE EDITORS 10 50, 100 AND 150 YEARS AGO 12 NEWS AND ANALYSIS En garde! (page 28) IN FOCUS Nuclear detonations improve radiotherapies against cancer. 17 SCIENCE AND THE CITIZEN How not to save the world from asteroids.... The future gets old.... Blindingly fast beetles. 22 PROFILE Thomas B. Cochran, nuclear activist, fights bombs with information. 34 TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS Downsizing organs.... Saving a biopesticide.... Electronic tongue. 36 CYBER VIEW How to kill the Internet. 45 4 “For six months, at least once a day, and many times more often, I floated above the large observation window in the Kvant 2 module of Mir and gazed at the earth....” So astronaut Shannon Lucid begins the description of her record-breaking sojourn on board the Russian space station. Here she discusses the rigors of training, the dexterity of mind and hand required in zero-g, the need for fast-paced music and other details of life in space. The New Shape of Television 70 Television’s Bright New Technology Alan Sobel Plasma-technology display panels, flat as a painting and 40 inches across, will be essential for showing off the sharper resolution of highdefinition video. Now the engineering trick will be to bring down the price. 78 Digital Television: Here at Last Jae S. Lim Broadcasters, television manufacturers and the U.S. government have finally agreed to a set of standards for upcoming digital broadcasts. T