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Last week's state of the union messages from the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union covered the same ground in different ways. Mr Gorbachev told the better tale but has the harder task.
The US administration's backing for the newest accelerator will encourage high-energy physicists; it should also prompt them to ask what happens next in their relations with their colleagues elsewhere.
As participants converge upon Miami, Florida for the 19th Miami Winter Symposium, 9-13 February, Nature highlights products for studying peptides and oligonucleotides.
