Ulysses treads a lonely path

Too young to kill? U.S. Supreme Court treads a dangerous path in Roper v. Simmons.

The death penalty remains an intensely divisive topic in American society. Recently, there has been a series of cases, first involving defendants with mental retardation and more recently involving juveniles, in which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled by a five-to-four margin that the death penalty in both these classes violates the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment...

Asia Treads the Nuclear Path, Unaware That Self- Assured DestructionWould Result from Nuclear War

OF THE NINE COUNTRIES known to have nuclear weapons, six are located in Asia and another, the United States, borders the Pacific Ocean. Russia and China were the first Asian nations with nuclear weapons, followed by Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Most of the world’s nuclear powers are reducing their arsenals or maintaining them at historic levels, but several of those in Asia—India, ...

The lonely eye.

A lthough the dinosaurs are gone, extant vertebrates provide clues to the development of photorecep-tion among the clades that probably preceded and then radiated into the dinosaurs. The ancient order Rhyncho-cephalia, which includes Sphenodon as its only family, with two surviving species, had its heyday between 200 million and 100 million years ago. While this order is reptilian, these creatu...

Lonely receptors kill cells

high-cholesterol diet can be the fast track to a heart attack. But scientists are only now discovering that one of cholesterol’s most damaging effects might stem from its ability to make blood cells self-destruct. The findings appear in a pair of recent studies directed by Ira Tabas (Columbia University, New York, NY). Cholesterol is abundant in atherosclerotic lesions, which become most danger...

The Ulysses perspective