Predicting the geometric shapes of soap bubble clusters can lead to surprisingly difficult mathematical problems.Frank Morgan of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., recently illustrated such difficulties when he invited an audience of mathematicians, students, and others to vote on which one of a given pair of different representations of the same number of clustered planar bubbles would have a smaller total perimeter. Assembled for a ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., to honor the 12 winners of the 2001 U.S.A. Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), audience members...

Predicting the geometric shapes of soap bubble clusters can lead to surprisingly difficult mathematical problems.Frank Morgan of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., recently illustrated such difficulties when he invited an audience of mathematicians, students, and others to vote on which one of a given pair of different representations of the same number of clustered planar bubbles would have a smaller total perimeter. Assembled for a ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., to honor the 12 winners of the 2001 U.S.A. Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), audience members...

Artist Susan Happersett of Jersey City, N.J., has come up with a novel twist on the venerable Möbius strip: a playful, eye-catching creation she describes as a Möbius accordion.A Möbius strip, or band, is the remarkable one-sided surface that results from joining together the two ends of a long strip of paper after twisting one end 180 degrees. Mathematicians, magicians, artists, and many others have been playing with this intriguing object since its discovery in the 19th century by August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868), a professor at the University of Leipzig in Germany.Happersett combines her...

Over the years, many studies have linked skin rashes in some people to working long hours at personal computers. A Swedish study now finds a possible explanation: Certain computer monitors emit a chemical that can cause allergic reactions.Three years ago, while analyzing pollution in samples of outdoor air, Conny Östman and his colleagues at Stockholm University realized that something in their lab was tainting the glassware they used. It was triphenyl phosphate, a flame retardant added to many plastics. The chemists eventually traced this contact allergen—which they later also found in the ai...

Over the years, many studies have linked skin rashes in some people to working long hours at personal computers. A Swedish study now finds a possible explanation: Certain computer monitors emit a chemical that can cause allergic reactions.Three years ago, while analyzing pollution in samples of outdoor air, Conny Östman and his colleagues at Stockholm University realized that something in their lab was tainting the glassware they used. It was triphenyl phosphate, a flame retardant added to many plastics. The chemists eventually traced this contact allergen—which they later also found in the ai...

Nothing tastes more like summer, to this inveterate gardener, than a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato. As a child, on a sweltering August afternoon, I used to swipe one from our garden to nibble slowly in the backyard. Or I’d share a bright red Beefsteak with mom. Slathered with mayonnaise and nestled on a bed of lettuce between slices of bread, it made a great summer sandwich.But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that tomatoes might offer summertime health benefits to a sunburn-prone towhead like me. Yet that’s just what a European research team reports this month in the Journal...

Nothing tastes more like summer, to this inveterate gardener, than a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato. As a child, on a sweltering August afternoon, I used to swipe one from our garden to nibble slowly in the backyard. Or I’d share a bright red Beefsteak with mom. Slathered with mayonnaise and nestled on a bed of lettuce between slices of bread, it made a great summer sandwich.But never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that tomatoes might offer summertime health benefits to a sunburn-prone towhead like me. Yet that’s just what a European research team reports this month in the Journal...