Christianity.
grasped directly, in an experience Edwards called "grace." What was the key to this heightened state? The Scriptures and nature. Even as a child, Edwards doubted the tradi-
tional Protestant doctrine of "predestinationw-the notion that some souls are born to salvation, some to damnation. age 18, he was convinced that anyone who read the Bible and studied nature could receive God's glory-provided that he had achieved "grace." For Edwards, that moment was u...
IODICALS
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
humid air occur. If the updrafts are powerful enough to soar into the cold troposphere, five to 11miles up, tall, anvil-headed cumulonimbus clouds form. As the tropospheric wind rises, temperatures fall, and the high- vaulted clouds become electrically charged-negative on top and positive on the bottom. In reaction,-the underlying sea or land surface takes on a negative charge. As the electrical attraction between ground and cloud grows (as high as 100 million v...
the Middle Preclassic period (1250 B.C. to ~~Q.B.c.),
trade had become sophisticated, with Mayan com- munities exchanging obsidian glassware and jade throughout Guatemala.
The Late Preclassic period (450 B.C. to A.D. 300) saw the emergence of religious and political conventions typical of Classic Maya civilization. In 1980, working near Cuello, Belize, Harnrnond discovered that Mayan vil-lagers had replaced their small courtyard with a large ceremonial site around 450 B.C. To commemorate that...
Edward Weston. Cutaway of a nautilus's home. Roughly 10 inches in diameter, such shells typically have 36 chambers.
depths. To stay above 800-foot depths where it would be crushed, the nautilus pumps water in and out of its shell chambers, like ballast in a submarine, to regulate its buoyancy. Feeding at night, the nautilus relies mainly on smell. Its primitive eyes are lensless, like a pinhole camera. At nine inches it can barely discern what a human can see at 165 yards.
Genetic studies of nautilus...
the National Science Foundation. The report warned that the genetic pool of existing crops
might become too shallow, leaving plants vulnerable to disease or environ- mental shock. Fanners were urged to shift away from crops that need large amounts of water and soil nutrients, or that cannot survive in a broad range of temperatures and soil conditions.
Several plants native to the United States offer alternatives. The buf- falo gourd, a relative of the squash and pumpkin family, is one. Indigenous...
releasing water very sparingly, the TVA dams had created a "eutrophication" problem: In still waters, micro-organisms absorb oxygen needed fish, which either die or move away. The Bonneville Power Administration will spend up to $30 million to fit screens on its 15dams to keep migrating salmon from getting hacked up by the blades of the 60-foot turbines.
Most U.S. dams were designed and built long before the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, which requires an ecological "impact"...
IODICALS
ARTS & LETTERS
Born in Moscow in 1931, Semyonov started out writing for Ogonyok, a newsweekly. In 1963, after a string of modest successes with fiction, he became a sensation with the publication of Petrouka 38, a thriller that described Soviet police methods in detail.
Semyonov's -next eight novels featured his most popular character, Maxim Stirlitz. He is the Soviet James Bond: athletic (a tennis champion), sensitive, educated (he can discuss Pascal and Kant), and courageously...
Roger Copeland, in
Partisan Review (Vol. 3, 1986), Boston Univ.,
141 Bay State Rd., Boston, Mass. 02215.
Few art forms get more criticism than does classical ballet.
Seizing on its aristocratic air, its rigidity-from leap to en point spin, every move is prescribed-and the seeming lack of social "relevance" of such ballets as Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, proponents of free-flowing modem dance denounce ballet as an art for mere aesthetes. The critics, notes...
Nicholas
Eberstadt, in Caribbean Review (No. 2, 1986),
--Florida International Univ., Tamiami Trail, Mi-
ami, Fla. 33199.
Like him or not, Fidel Castro has made Cuba a more literate, healthier, and better-educated nation-or so many American journalists and government officials believe.
These folk do not include Eberstadt, a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He argues that only fudging key statistics has Havana been able to pass itself off as a "socialist showcase."
In...
Nicholas
Eberstadt, in Caribbean Review (No. 2, 1986),
--Florida International Univ., Tamiami Trail, Mi-
ami, Fla. 33199.
Like him or not, Fidel Castro has made Cuba a more literate, healthier, and better-educated nation-or so many American journalists and government officials believe.
These folk do not include Eberstadt, a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He argues that only fudging key statistics has Havana been able to pass itself off as a "socialist showcase."
In...