Departments

Gone Fission -- Wilbur on Flying -- Cold Steam
Articles from past issues of Scientific American

Supplement: Flying as a Sport
An article by Wilbur Wright in Scientific American, February 29, 1908

Presidential Science
Aspirants to the White House should publicly debate their views on science policy

News Scan Briefs

Maverick Against the Mendelians
Using standard inheritance theory, scientists have searched for the genes underlying autism with little success. Michael Wigler thinks he knows why - and how the disorder persists over generations
Supplement: Working around the Mendelians: A Q&A with Michael Wigler

Letters
Drug Access -- Conservation Strategy -- Consciousness

Reviews
Oil vs. Autos -- Science Imitates Art

Updates... Whatever happened to?
AIDS Accounting -- IPCC's Tough Talk -- Seasonal Spread -- Pollock Put-Down

Leap of Faith: Blue Screens Explained

• Potent Alternative
• Proactive Prototypes
• Aerial Stealth
• Turning a Blind Eye
• Disease for Darwinism
• Arabian Brainpower
• From Race to DNA

• Remembrance of Things Future

• Crisis in the Drylands

• The Mind of the Market

• Pay For What Works

• Brazil's Option for Science Education

 

Features

Your Cells Are My Cells
Many, perhaps all, people harbor a small number of cells from genetically different individuals--from their mothers and, for women who have been pregnant, from their children. What in the world do these foreigners do in the body?
By J. Lee Nelson

Building the Next Generation Collider
To further investigate the intricacies of high-energy particle physics, researchers must construct a more powerful electron-positron collider
By Barry Barish, Nicholas Walker and Hitoshi Yamamoto

RFID Power
Radio-frequency identification tags label all kinds of inventoried goods and speed commuters through toll plazas. Now tiny RFID components are being developed with a rather different aim: thwarting counterfeiters
By Tim Hornyak

The Coming Revolutions in Particle Physics
The current Standard Model of particle physics begins to unravel when probed much beyond the range of current particle accelerators. So no matter what the Large Hadron Collider finds, it is going to take physics into new territory
By Chris Quigg

Large Hadron Collider: The Discovery Machine
A global collaboration of scientists is preparing to start up the greatest particle physics experiment in history
By Graham P. Collins

The Future of Physics
The Editors' introduction to the physics Special Report
By The Editors

Building a Future On Science
Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel A. L. Nicolelis taps into the chatter of neural populations to drive robotic prosthetics. Now he hopes to tap the potential of his country's population by building them a network of science cities
By Christine Soares

Unquiet Ice Speaks Volumes on Global Warming
Abundant liquid water newly discovered underneath the world's great ice sheets could intensify the destabilizing effects of global warming on the sheets. Then, even without melting, the sheets may slide into the sea and raise sea level catastrophically
By Robin Bell

Online Exclusives

Slideshow
Robot Roaches Rally Real Roaches
Tiny robotic roaches were able to influence the collective behavior of real ones, pointing the way to more sophisticated machine-animal interactions of the future.

Web Features
Beyond the Worst-Case Climate Change Scenario
The IPCC has declared man-made climate change “unequivocal.” The hard part: trying to stop it.

News
Partial Recall: Why Memory Fades with Age
The disruption of white matter conduits in the aging brain keeps its regions from communicating effectively.

Podcast
Dark Stars Bigger Than Solar Systems?
Early stars partially composed of dark matter may have been too bloated for fusion.

Video
What is Dark Matter?
Our new video podcast kicks off with a quick take on the stuff that makes up most of the
mass in the universe.

Community
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