• Features
• 
  Courtesy of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Are You Evil?: Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked
  A cognitive scientist employs malevolent logic to define the dark side of the human psyche

• Features
• 
  Courtesy of Michael Persinger
• If You Want to See a Specter Bad Enough, Will You?
  Researchers set up "haunted" room to prove an electromagnetic theory of ghost sightings

• Features
• 
  Courtesy of iStockphoto; Copyright: Ryan Lane
• Factoring Fear: What Scares Us and Why
  Scientists scan the brain in an attempt to explain the hows and whys of being afraid--very afraid

• Science Talk
• 
• Cemetery Science: The Geology of Mausoleums
  For Halloween, we take a tour of Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, N.Y., with geologist Sidney Horenstein and Woodlawn expert Susan Olsen, concentrating on the geology of the rock used in the memorials

 

More

60-Second Earth
Chocolate: Treat or Trick?
There is an environmental price for our love of chocolate on Halloween, but it may not be what you think

60-Second Science
Ghostbusters: Are military bases haunted?
Government installations appear to attract the supernatural

Science Talk
Quest for the Giant Pumpkin
In this episode, journalist Susan Warren, author of the new book Backyard Giants, talks about the art and science involved in the Quixotic quest to grow the world's biggest pumpkins

News
On a Wing and Low Air: The Surprising Way Wind Turbines Kill Bats
It is the pressure change--not the blades--that wipe out thousands of bats annually at wind farms

60-Second Science
Special Halloween Edition: The Vampires of New England
As recently as the 1890s, some New Englanders believed that their dead relatives were vampires, feeding on the living. And, in fact, the dead could look better when exhumed than they did while still alive. Now we know why.

News
Vampire Bat Saliva Compound Could Help Treat Strokes

Ask the Experts
Why is spider silk so strong?

News
Mummy DNA Reveals Birth of Ancient Scourge

News
Bat's Wing Strokes Unlike a Bird's
Fog and lasers reveal the wind beneath a bat's wings

Science Talk
Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: Sci Am's History of Debunking
In this episode, Scientific American editor-in-chief John Rennie talks about the magazine's history of involvement with efforts to debunk medical quakery and paranormal fakery, which included a fistfight between a Sci Am editor and Harry Houdini. And we'll hear an 1883 Sci Am editorial on the relative merits of the telephone and telegraph

News
Mummy's Face Revealed with CT Scans

News
Pumpkins Pull Pollutants out of Contaminated Soil

News
New Blood Substitutes Promise Relief for Sagging Blood Banks
HemoBioTech says it has solved the toxicity issues that have plagued its predecessors

Scientific American Mind
Casting Out the Demons
Adolescents are naturally drawn to occult ideas, but parents and therapists should know the signs that indicate when this fascination has become deeper and more dangerous

Scientific American Magazine
Going to Bat
Natural reservoir for emerging viruses may be bats

News
Scientists Uncover the Chemical Complexities of Mummification

Ask the Experts
How do scientists make artificial blood?
How effective is it compared with the real thing?

Ask the Experts
Too Much Halloween Candy?--How Floride Toothpaste Keep Cavities Away
How does the fluoride in toothpaste prevent cavities? Is there any kind of 'natural' fluoride protection, or is it only in artificial compounds?

Scientific American Magazine
New Light on Medicine
Pigments that turn caustic on exposure to light can fight cancer, blindness and heart disease. Their light-induced toxicity may also help explain the origin of vampire tales