A magazine's cover story is typically not only the most compelling article in the issue but also the piece that best represents what the magazine is about. And our cover story in this issue-on the hunt for the human embryonic stem (ES) cell-offers a fine example of what the new Technology Review is all about. It combines cutting-edge research, a huge potential commercial payoff, important policy and ethical issues, and heated controversy.

Writer Antonio Regalado provides excellent reporting on an important area of biotechnology that has been given scant coverage by the major media. The cloning of Dolly the sheep last year elicited a tidal wave of attention; the announcement by John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University that he had isolated human ES cells raised hardly a ripple. That's surprising, because the identification of human ES cells may have more impact on our species than Dolly ever will.