CONTRIBUTORS

ROBERT WRIGHT is accustomed to thinking of the human mind as an intricate machine. He has long been fascinated with evolutionary psychology--a field that views the brain as a mechanism built by the genes and shaped by natural selection--and has written extensively about it, both in his 1994 book, The Moral Animal, and in a TIME cover story last August, "Twentieth Century Blues." In this week's cover story, contributor Wright examines the philosophical questions raised by "artificial intelligences" such as Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer that nearly defeated the human world champion, Garry Kasparov. In addition, Kasparov writes about the moment during the match when he first sensed that he was in the presence of a real, albeit somewhat alien, intelligence.

CLAUDIA WALLIS certainly has plenty to do. The veteran TIME science writer is the mother of three and the managing editor of TIME FOR KIDS, which reaches nearly 800,000 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders each week. But she could not resist the opportunity to tell the remarkable story this week of Abigail and Brittany Hensel. "I had read LIFE magazine's cover story about the conjoined twins," she says, "and was moved to tears." Wallis teamed up with reporter Jen Doman, who befriended the Hensels last fall and secured exclusive rights to their story for Life. Says Wallis: "She did a remarkable job of documenting one family's efforts to build an ordinary and happy life for two children born under extraordinary circumstances."

BILL SAPORITO, TIME's new business editor, joins us from our sister publication FORTUNE, where he spent a decade writing about corporate takeovers and editing the magazine's Newstrends section. "The world of commerce has never been more complex, or more important, given our shared anxieties about layoffs and restructuring," says Saporito. At FORTUNE he loved the fast pace of Newstrends' late-breaking stories but not the magazine's fortnightly schedule. "It drove me crazy to sit there for a week and not be able to jump on a hot story," he says. Now, at this weekly newsmagazine, he gets to double his output and his pace, which is fine with him and with us too.

KAREN TUMULTY learned two years ago that Tom Daschle is not entirely the mild, cautious politician he pretends to be. As a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, she spent several days with the U.S. Senator in his home state, South Dakota. Never an enthusiastic flyer, she was dismayed one foggy night to learn that Daschle had booked them onto a tiny airplane. Even worse, he let her know with a big grin that he planned to pilot the craft himself. This week the tables are turned. Daschle is Clinton's point man on Capitol Hill, and Tumulty is TIME's congressional correspondent--steering us through a bumpy presidential campaign that will be waged, by and large, inside the Beltway.