大脑中的牛鬼蛇神

如果所有的体验都源于大脑，那超自然现象也只不过是神经的作用而已。     

超快的原子芯片

这幅绘画作品显示出一团超冷原子云悬浮在一块简单的微芯片表面附近的磁场中。     

锥面的花样

现今人们最熟悉的锥面，大概要算是用来盛冰淇淋的那种能吃下去的锥形蛋卷了。但历史上锥面的辉煌却完全在另外一些更高级的层次上。古希腊人已经熟悉锥面的几何性质，这主要是因为用一个平面去截锥面可以构造出漂亮的圆锥曲线。古希腊人很喜欢这些圆锥曲线——包括椭圆、抛物线和双曲线——     

大脑植入物

耳蜗移植物为世界各地成千上万严重的老少耳聋患者的自然听力提供了有用的替代物，这些装置用电刺激耳蜗内的听觉神经，使众多使用它们的患者能在没有视觉线索的情况下(比如说电话上)进行交谈。但是对那些其神经末梢已经退化或听觉神经已经损坏的人来说，听力恢复的唯一希望就是接通听觉系统的后部。目前加州的研究人员正在努力做这项工作，他们正用直接插入脑的装置取代耳蜗移植物。     

用湖水降温

即使在7月里的一天，当纽约州伊萨卡镇的气温高达90华氏度而闷热异常时，邻近的卡尤加湖的深处湖水仍是冰凉刺骨的40华氏度。这一简单明了的事实提醒了康乃尔大学——该镇最大的经济实体——采取一项新颖的办法来解决它对于降温的能源需求。该大学已着手实施一项耗资5500万美元的工程，名     

成功还是失败？

遥远超新星或许在横跨宇宙的半路上，但它们已经在地球上引起了—场激烈的争论。两年前，天文学家们发现，这些叵星爆炸比预期的暗弱——两者差异的程度相当大，看来要用空间结构本身来解释。超新星反常的暗弱表明，宇宙的膨胀可能正在加速，而不是像宇宙学家一直认为的那样在减速。但是现在八位超新星观测人员担心，他们的引人注目的发现同其它某些有争议的     

Deaf college students' comprehension of relational language in arithmetic compare problems

In this study of deaf college students' performance solving compare word problems, relational statements were either consistent or inconsistent with the arithmetic operation required for the solutions. The results support the consistency hypothesis Lewis and Mayer (1987) proposed based on research with hearing students. That is, deaf students were more likely to miscomprehend a relational statement and commit a reversal error when the required arithmetic operation was inconsistent with the statement's relational term (e.g., having to add when the relational term was less than). Also, the reversal error effect with inconsistent word problems was magnified when the relational statement was a marked term (e.g., a negative adjective such as less than) rather than an unmarked term (e.g., a positive adjective such as more than). Reading ability levels of deaf students influenced their performance in a number of ways. As predicted, there was a decrease in goal-monitoring errors, multiple errors, and the number of problems left blank as the reading levels of students increased. Contrary to expectations, higher reading skills did not affect the frequency of reversal errors.