Cracking the Kremlin Files When 74 years of Communist rule ended, archivist Charles Palm saw his chance. Here's how he brought 25 million pages of once-secret Soviet history to Stanford. Plus: Reel Stories A scholar dives into the gulag files.

Rhymes with Harpoonist With an eye for detail and a quirky sense of humor, cartoonist Hilary Price finds fodder in everyday life. Her comic strip, "Rhymes with Orange," runs in 100 newspapers.

Truth and Consequences Anthropologist David Stoll's exposé of a Nobel Peace Prize winner has set off a furor and dredged up old arguments from the campus culture wars of the 1980s.

Poetic License Vikram Seth was doing a PhD in economics when he got diverted by a writing fellowship -- and became a poet, translator, travel writer and best-selling novelist instead.

The History of Everyone and Everything Genetic geographer Luca Cavalli-Sforza earned an international reputation tracing ancient human migrations. Now his plan to build a global DNA bank has led to charges of "biopiracy." Plus: My Blood Brother in Samarkand Thanks to a genetic match, a young scientist finds a distant relative in a distant land.

'Lower the Gurney, This Is a Catch and Carry' In a night on ambulance duty, a medical student learns that a minute lasts longer than he ever imagined -- and that in a struggle with death, stalemate can mean victory.

Digest

• Expect Fireworks When the World Cup Hits the Farm
• Slow Go on Zimbardo-Leonardo Picture Show
• Is There a Rodeo Star in the House?
• No. 303: Buy This Book
• Songs of Stanford -- The Early Years
• Revenge of the Nerd

Follow-Up

• A Wrangle Over Faculty Housing
• For Printers Inc., a Surprise Ending

SPORTS

• Men's Basketball In the End, Love, a Pac-10 Title -- and Disappointment
• Women's Basketball A Midseason Rebound
• Baseball From Here, You Can See the Field of Dreams
• Synchronized Swimming Grace Under Water
• Sports Notebook

NEWS

• Top Jobs The New No. 2: A Computer Whiz with Vision
• Technology Wiring a Global Learning Lab
• Visitors A Satirist Turns -- Oh No! -- to Stanford
• Head of the Class
• Retail Turning to Outsiders for the Bookstore's Next Chapter
• Astronomy SOHO, Phone Home
• This Magic Moment Students enjoy the opening one-two-three at the Viennese Ball
• Building 10 Rice on Students, Tough Decisions and Her Oil Tanker. Plus: the full transcript of her conversation with Stanford editor Bob Cohn, only online.
• Inquiring Minds
• Hoover Institution For the Ex-Governor, a Campus Perch
• Computing Small Wonder
• Campus Notebook
• Speakers' Corner
• Technology Test-Driving Jobs
• Finance A Steady Flow of Research Dollars
• Weekends A Red Carpet for Mom and Dad
• Syllabi A Stanford course sampler
• Health Research Shining a Light on Clogged Arteries
• Undergraduate Research Through Grants, Hayley Lives On
• Top Jobs For GSB Dean, a Global Banker
• Linguistics Silicon Lexicon

Author, Author Tales of an Alaskan childhood Stanford Bookstore Best-Sellers Excerpt Memoirs of a compulsive overeater Book Review Trey Ellis' huckster story

Book Blurbs

• Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice, by Marjorie Cohn and David Dow, '59
• Sleep, by Stephen Dixon, '65
• Understanding the Euro: The Clear and Concise Guide to the New Trans-European Currency, by Christian Chabot, '94
• Blue as the Lake: A Personal Geography, by Robert Stepto, MA '68, PhD '74

First Impressions Playing Smart President's Column Who's Who Letters to the Editor 1,000 Words On the Job with Gabor Vermes A historian who knows his job by heart

Cardinal Numbers

Bright Ideas Dwight Clark listened to students -- and built a model program in Asia

Student Voice For the first time in half a century, sororities get campus housing

Virtual Stanford A securities website for lawyers

Endnotes A Little League dad's rookie season

The Notes: Tidings from classmates near and far

Grad Notes

Spotlight: William A. Wilson, Reagan's Vatican Man

Spotlight: Bob Fuss, CBS radio reporter

What Ever Happened to . . . Tennis great Dan Goldie

Snapshot: Mural model

Obituaries

Remembering: Rosamond "Ros" Clarke Bacon