Hal Harris

Computer security became a personal issue for Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows when his wife Deb's g-mail account was hacked. Bogus e-mails appealing for emergency money were sent to everyone on her contacts list, six years of mail, photographs, and records were deleted, and Mrs. Fallows was locked out of her own account.

Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down , knows how to write a nonfiction thriller. The Worm sounds like it ought to be science fiction, but the title refers to the Conficker worm, the most diabolical and potentially damaging computer malware ever devised.

One would expect a long-time educator like me to know more about the largest university in the United States (enrollment of 530,000) and I have wondered what the University of Phoenix is really like.

Owen Gingerich is the author of one of my favorite books, "The Book Nobody Read", which was my Pick for October 2004 (could it have been that long ago?), which combines astronomy, history research, and bibliophilia.

None of us is Spock, the superrational StarTrek character, but many of us in the science or science education business imagine ourselves to less susceptible to unfounded beliefs than the non-scientist community.