Departments
100 Years Ago: Sleeping Sickness
Innovation and discovery as chronicled in past issues of Scientific American
Start of the End
Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina introduces the September 2010 issue of Scientific American
Readers Respond on "Revolutionary Rail"
Letters to the editor from the May 2010 issue of Scientific American
Recommended: The 50 Most Extreme Places
in Our Solar System
Books and recommendations from Scientific American
- Feeling the Pain of Rejection? Try Taking a Tylenol
- Fat Attack: Will Three New Antiobesity Drugs Beat a Checkered Safety History?
- Undifferentiated Ethics: Why Stem Cells from Adult Skin Are as Morally Fraught as Embryonic Stem Cells
- Lunar Pencil Lead: Graphite Found in Moon Rock Collected During Apollo 17
- Quantum Light Switch: Single Atom Acts as a Transistor for Photons
- Rummaging for a Final Theory
- Doubts on Dispersants
- Sour Showers
- Origami Sheets That Fold Themselves
Features
Eternal Fascinations with the End: Why We're Suckers for Stories of Our Own Demise
Our pattern-seeking brains and desire to be special help explain our fears of the apocalypse
By Michael Moyer
Why Can't We Live Forever?
As we grow old, our own cells begin to betray us. By unraveling the mysteries of aging, scientists may be able to make our lives longer and healthier
By Thomas Kirkwood
When Does Life Belong to the Living?
With thousands of people on the waiting lists for organs, doctors are bending the rules about when to declare that a donor is dead. Is it ethical to take one life and give it to another?
By Robin Marantz Henig
Dust to Dust: The Brief, Eventful Afterlife of a Human Corpse
The brief, eventful afterlife of a human corpse
By Arpad A. Vass
Last of Their Kind: What Is Lost When Cultures Die?
The world's cultures have been disappearing, taking valuable knowledge with them, but there is reason to hope
By Wade Davis
Good Riddance: Human Creations the World Would Be Better Off Without
Our highly selective list includes Teflon, dropped calls and the space shuttle
By John Pavlus, Melinda Wenner Moyer, Christopher Mims and Elizabeth Svoboda
How Much Is Left? The Limits of Earth's Resources
A graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide
By Michael Moyer and Carina Storrs
Laying Odds on the Apocalypse: Experts Assess Doomsday
Could modern civilization really come to an end? Experts take stock of eight doomsday scenarios
By John Matson and John Pavlus
The Paradox of Time: Why It Can't Stop, But Must
Yes. And no. For time to end seems both impossible and inevitable. Recent work in physics suggests a resolution to the paradox
By George Musser
What Comes Next: Experts Predict the Future
The flip side to every ending is a new beginning. We asked the visionary scientists on our advisory board what new trends will shape the decades to come
By Danny Hillis, Arthur Caplan, Edward Felten, Christof Koch, Michael Webber, Daniel Kammen, R. James Woolsey, Leslie Aiello, George Church and John Reganold
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World Changing Ideas Video Contest
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Innovation is the key to a better future. Enter your own World Changing Ideas videos in our contest. For examples, see "World Changing Ideas," Scientific American; December 2009.
Editor's Pick
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What's Next for AIDS: New Approaches for Tackling HIV in the Developing WorldThe surprise success this summer of a clinical trial on an antiretroviral-based vaginal microbicide provides new traction for efforts to combat AIDS in the developing world. Here are some new directions to expect for treatment and prevention of this widespread killer
Scientific American Issue Alert
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Podcasts
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60-Second Science
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Dinner Party Discovered 12,000 Years Later
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A Few Drug-Resistant Bacteria May Keep the Whole Colony Alive
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Slideshows
Toxic avenger: One man's desperate idea to save the rhinos--poison their horns
If the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well?
Evolutionary psycho-logy: Commandeering genetics to explain why Obama really is a Muslim
Re-thinking the Internet with security and mobility in mind
Engineering students happily deafened by Mwanga metalworkers
Science Jobs of the Week
- The Argonne Named Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne United States - Postdoctoral Positions
Northwestern University
Illinois, USA - Postdoctoral Research Positions in Skin and Liver Inflammation
Temple University School of Medicine
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA - Postdoctoral Research Associate
Washington State University - Institute of Biological Chemistry
Pullman, WA, USA - Crustal Processes in Early Planetary History
Brown University
Providence, RI, USA - > More science jobs from
