Janet Raloff, in Sci-Saving Teeth ence News (Apr. 19, 1986), 1719 N St. N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 10036.
Long known for their readiness to use the drill, dentists have discovered a less painful way to fight tooth decay and strengthen weak teeth: mouth- washes that "remineralize" decayed tooth enamel.
Normally, mineral-rich saliva from glands in the mouth protects teeth from acids secreted plaque-forming bacteria. But when the bacteria's acids dissolve tooth minerals faster than the body...
using lenses to bend light, which either passes through or is reflected back the specimen under scrutiny. An electron microscope employs the same principle-except that it uses a beam of-electrons instead of light to create a magnified image. The new STMs utilize a different method altogether: A small probe passes closely over a specimen, senses the contour of the atoms on its surface, and sends the information to a computer, which generates a picture.
Early versions of the STM (as with electron...
Rashid A. Shaikh, in Technol-osy Review (Apr. 1986), Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology, Bldg. 10, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
In 1977, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) banned the domestic sale of children's sleepwear treated with Tris, a flame retar- dant; studies had shown that Tris caused cancer. American garment dis- tributors-their warehouses filled with unsalable clothing-cut their losses exporting 2.4 million pairs of the fireproofed pajamas.
Under public pressure, the...
backing the UN Environment Program's pro-
posal to compile a worldwide list of all hazardous export products. Without
U.S. backing, he argues, any UN export safety effort will surely stall.
ARTS & LETTERS
"A Posthumous Mies: The Case Against" Jo-
seph Rykwert, in Art in America (Apr. 1986),
980 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10021,
At the 1968 opening ceremony of the New National Gallery in Berlin- an austere, glass-faced pavilion perched on a windowless stone base-the museum's dir...
"Missed Moorings" Nicholas Lernann, in The Washington Monthly (Feb. 1986), 1711 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.
Experience provides the raw material of good fiction. It is no accident that many major American novelists had, at some point in their lives, vocations other than writing. Mark Twain and Herman Melville piloted ships. John Steinbeck worked as a farm hand. Ernest Herningway drove an ambulance during World War I.
But what has happened since World War II? wonders...
contrast, White Noise merely furthers the view popular among the nation's literati that "American life is unreal and sterile for the middle class and degrading for the working class."
One reason for such rejection, Lemann suggests, is that even best- selling American novelists do not receive the attention they once did. Forced to compete with television and other media, all but the most popu- lar novels sell fewer and fewer copies each year. As Lemann observes, "a writer who thinks...
William V.
Shannon, in Foreign Affairs(Spring 1986), 58
East 68th St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
On November 15,1985, prime ministers Margaret Thatcher of Britain and Garret FitzGerald of Ireland signed the so-called Anglo-Irish agreement, a pact officially recognizing Dublin as a partner, alongside London, in the governance of Northern Ireland, or Ulster.
Granting the Irish Free State a voice in the administration of Northern Ireland's police force, courts, and prisons, the agreement marked a major...
Michael F. Lofchie, in Current History (May 1986), 3740 Creamery Rd., Furlong, Pa. 18925.
Plagued drought, famine, and political turmoil, the nations of sub-Sahara Africa have dashed the hopes of many Western economists in recent years.
AH except Kenya, that is. Thanks to a strong agrarian economy, writes Lofchie, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, Kenya is "an African success story.'
Over the last decade, Kenya's agricultural sector has enjoyed an aver-...
Africans, converting it from communal or group ownership to private plots. refusing to subsidize urban nsum-ers with artificially low food prices, Nairobi has provided its farmers with a powerful incentive to increase their output. Export-crop production has nearly doubled since the late 1970s.
The present boom in world coffee prices, owing largely to a drought in Brazil, bodes well for Kenya's economic future. But difficulties loom ahead. While the country's overall gross domestic product has...
presidents Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez (1982-86) and Arias to avoid di- rect conflict with the Sandinistas have not gone over well with the Reagan administration either.
Reding worries'that -Costa Rican democracy may suffer in the long run from the Reagan administration's attempt to use Costa Rica in the struggle against the Sandinistas. In trying to change Costa Rica's antimilitarism, Washington may instead tip its own ally off balance.
"Pakistan: Testing Time for the New Order" William...