  By use of a variety of techniques (most based on constructions of
quasipositive knots and links, some old and others new), many smooth
3-manifolds are realized as transverse intersections of complex surfaces in
complex 3-space with strictly pseudoconvex 5-spheres. These manifolds not only
inherit interesting intrinsic structures (eg, they have canonical
Stein-fillable contact structures), they also have extrinsic structures of a
knot-theoretical nature (eq, the 3-sphere arises in infinitely many distinct
ways). This survey is not comprehensive; a number of questions are left open
for future work.
