Magazine

The Blow-Up

November 2007

This summer, as a meltdown in the subprime credit market spilled over into other markets, all eyes were on the mathematically trained financial engineers known as “quants.” Who are these guys? By Bryant Urstadt

Read the issue

Letter from the editor

Oppenheimer’s Ghost

Features

Categorized in Uncategorized
What Is He Doing?
Twitter is at the heart of the phenomenon called microblogging. Meet its founder, Evan Williams.
Categorized in 17037
Measuring the Polar Meltdown
At a remote outpost in northern Greenland, a team of scientists are attempting to resolve the central mystery of global warming: how quickly will sea levels rise?

Also in this issue
- Letters
  Letters from our readers.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Financial Woes in Second Life
  Fiscal crisis raises questions about how the game handles real money.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Hidden Hearing Aid
  Implant it convenient but doesn’t work as well as external hearing aids.
  Categorized in 17035
- Seals as Sensors
  Elephant seals gather climate data.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Networking the Hudson
  Data from the river will create a model for environmental monitoring.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Watching Live Cells
  Categorized in 17035
- A Better Touch Screen
  In a Microsoft prototype, your fingers don’t cover up what you’re looking at.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Watching Wildfires
  Categorized in 17032
- 3-D View of the Brain
  New software for the operating room.
  Categorized in 17032
- Battery Booster
  Saving power in mobile devices.
  Categorized in 17037
- Postglacial Rebound
  Better measurements of ice loss.
  Categorized in 17032
- Better than High-Def
  Get ready for high-contrast displays.
  Categorized in 17032
- Virtual Streetscapes
  Picking up where Google Earth leaves off, EveryScape depicts streets and building interiors with photorealistic detail
  Categorized in 17036
- Mission to Mars: A True Story
  A graphic story chronicling NASA’s various attempts to explore the red planet.
  Categorized in 17037
- Steve Fever
  Countless tiny machines hijack the living, borrowing their hands, eyes, and ears, as the machines strive to resurrect just one man.
  Categorized in 17032
- The Interoperation
  Architecture had given way to software management. So he turned buildings into construction programs.
  Categorized in 17032
- Google Earth
  How Google maps the world.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- William Hurlbut
  Embryonic stem cells without embryos.
  Categorized in 17035
- On Quants
  Financial engineers merely keep the markets running.
  Categorized in 17036
- Friend Spam
  The founder of Friendster looks at the revolution he started.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Sea-Level Riddle
  Determining how fast ice sheets are melting is critical to future policy.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Trivial Pursuits
  With microblogging services, such as Pownce, Jaiku, Twitter, and Facebook, the mundane is the message.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- A Genetic Test for Diabetes Risk
  Will it help make people healthier?
  Categorized in 17035
- The Talk of the Town: You
  Rethinking privacy in an immodest age.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Virus-Built Electronics
  A new way to fabricate nanomaterials could mean batteries and solar cells woven into clothing.
  Categorized in 17037
- From the Labs: Nanotechnology
  New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in nanotechnology–and what they mean.
  Categorized in 17032
- From the Labs: Information Technology
  New publications, experiments, and breakthroughs in information technology–and what they mean.
  Categorized in 17032
- From the Labs: Biotechnology
  New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in biotechnology–and what they mean.
  Categorized in 17035
- The Bonfire of the Automated Trading Strategies
  Computers’ effects on markets remain controversial.
  Categorized in 17032

Updated