USE OF COOKIES We use ""cookies"" to help personalize and maximize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard drive by a web page server. Cookies are not used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to your computer, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize pages or register for services on any of the Science websites, a cookie helps us to recall your specific information (such as user name, password, and preferences). Because of our use of cookies, we can deliver faster and more accurate results and a more personalized site experience. When you return to the Science Website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the features that you customized. We also use cookies to track click streams and for load balancing. 