CURRENT ISSUE
April 2006
Features
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Grace Under Fire
As San Francisco burned, 100 years ago this month, a hardy band of men worked feverishly to save the city's mint—and with it, the U.S. economy
Young and Restless
Saudi Arabia's baby boomers, born after the 1973 oil embargo, are redefining the kingdom's relationship with the modern world
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A Gibson Girl in New Guinea
Two Seattle women have retraced the intrepid travels of model and portrait artist Caroline Mytinger, who journeyed to the South Sea islands in the 1920s to capture "vanishing primitives" on canvas
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Odyssey's End?: The Search for Ancient Ithaca
A researcher contends he has pinpointed the island to which Homer's wanderer returned and new data supports his thesis
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For the Love of Lemurs
To her delight, social worker-turned-scientist Patricia Wright has found the mischievous Madagascar primates to be astonishingly complex
Students of the Game
When the Aztec and Maya played it 500 to 1,000 years ago, the losers sometimes lost their headsliterally
Departments
Stars and Strife
A clash of cultures at Boston's City Hall in 1976 symbolized the city's years-long confrontation with the busing of schoolchildren
Refined Palette
Scholars say this 19th-century artifact could have belonged to the celebrated American painter
Home Is the Sailor
One hundred years ago this month, John Paul Jones was welcomed home with great fanfare at the U.S. Naval Academy. But was the body really his?
Evildoer
The Beowolf monster is a thousand years old, but his bad old tricks continue to resonate in the modern world
Fred and Ginger
Two robots, neither as graceful as its namesake, but no less accomplished, are among advances keeping scientists on the cutting edge
My Cold War Hang-Up
How I learned to stop worrying and make peace with my nuclear phone