11
18
20
5 STORY ONE
s Human and natural forces
briefly stall global warming
8 BODY & BRAIN
s Unusual lung problem found
in some returning soldiers
s Brain can be flexible when it
comes to mirroring actions
s The math of HIV treatment
10 LIFE
s Interspecies mating spread
poison resistance in mice
s Lions attack after full moon
s Chief baboons face high stress
s Lizards flip lids for food
12 MATTER & ENERGY
s Quantum math gets physical
foundation
s Time cloak hides events
14 EARTH
s Valuable rare earth elements
found under the sea
s Some fish fine after BP spill
16 HUMANS
s Narcissists know their vanity
s Chimpanzee picks up on
acoustically warped words
17 GENES & CELLS
s West Africans shuffle genetic
deck more than Europeans
s Centenarian study retracted
s Newts regrow eyes like magic
18 ATOM & COSMOS
s Big Bang residue confirms
dark energy
s Saturn’s dusty moon
Features
20 ONE PROBLEM, MANY PATHS
Genetic networks underlying
autism could point to new
therapies — even without
identifying a clear cause.
By Laura Sanders
22 WATER’S EDGE ANCESTORS
Dining on fish and mollusks
may have given Homo species
a previously underappreciated
mental boost.
By Bruce Bower
26 CARBON FLATLAND
COVER STORY: Graphene,
carbon’s two-dimensional
form, offers a playground
for physicists interested in
bizarre electronic properties.
By Alexandra Witze
Departments
2 FROM THE EDITOR
4 NOTEBOOK
30 BOOKSHELF
31 FEEDBACK
32 FROM THE ARCHIVE
During the space race, U.S. and
Soviet teams also engaged in a
less-famous contest — to drill
down to the boundary between
the Earth’s crust and mantle.
COVER During the
fabrication of superthin
sheets of carbon known
as graphene, flowerlike
defects can develop, as
shown in this computer
simulation. E. Cockayne
and J. Stroscio/NIST
