GETTING A PEEK AT BARE ELECTRONS . Modern quantum theory holds that the vacuum near an electron is filled with virtual particles blinking into and out of existence. Conservation of energy is not violated in this case because the particles live for such a short time, in accordance with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. And just as it is difficult to view the surface of Venus because of its thick atmosphere, so a naked electron cannot easily be studied because of its self-made cloak of virtual particles. But physicists in Japan have now partly lifted the electron's veil. At the TRISTAN accelerator electrons and positrons collide head on. In these reactions events with the highest momentum-transferred- squared (Q^2) correspond to instances in which the electrons and positrons got very close to each other. Unlike the violent proton- antiproton collisions at Fermilab (where quarks and antiquarks approach to within 10^-19 m---see Update 299), the electron- positron collisions at TRISTAN do not involve the strong nuclear force, and thus the electron's unadulterated electromagnetic nature can be measured to an unprecedented extent. In the closest encounters---as close as 2 x 10^-18 m---the electrons and positrons could fairly be said to have partially penetrated each other's clouds. Thereby the TOPAZ detector collaboration (contact David Koltick of Purdue, koltick@physics.purdue.edu) has demonstrated, for the first time in a way that does not depend upon assumptions about the other forces of nature, that as expected the electromagnetic coupling constant, the parameter which specifies the inherent strength of the electromagnetic force, actually increases for very high- Q^2 events (up to values of 3337 (GeV/c)^2). (L. Levine et al., Physical Review Letters, 20 January 1997; see a figure at Physics News Graphics)