Welcome to "The End," at least as we know it. The features here, from the September 2010 issue, cover a range of topics, such as the decomposition of human flesh, the disappearance of cultures, the Earth's remaining natural resources, and apocalypse scenarios.
You will also find links to our exclusive digital offerings as they go live, including an interactive, rich-media feature, as well as links to interviews about the issue on public radio's The Takeaway. Tell us what you think using the comments section below.
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Feature Articles from the September 2010 Issue
Start of the End Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina explains the September 2010 issue of Scientific American | Eternal Fascinations with the End Why we're suckers for stories of our own demise |
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 | When Does Life Belong To the Living? Some doctors think we shouldn’t wait for donors to die before removing their organs. |
Dust to Dust The brief, eventful afterlife of a human corpse | Last of Their Kind The world's cultures have been disappearing, taking valuable knowledge with them, but there is reason to hope |
Good Riddance Our highly selective list includes Teflon, dropped calls and the space shuttle | How Much Is Left? A graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide |
Laying Odds on the Apocalypse Could modern civilization really come to an end? Experts take stock of eight doomsday scenarios | Could Time End? Yes. And no. For time to end seems both impossible and inevitable. Recent work in physics suggests a resolution to the paradox |
What Comes Next 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 |
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Online Exclusives
Good Riddance to Polio: A Conquered Disease Still Clings to Life Despite a known preventative, polio still maims and cripples 1,000 people annually | Good Riddance to Mosquitoes: Four Ways to Beat the Malaria-Carrying Threat Lasers, parasites and other methods could help prevent a disease that afflicts hundreds of millions of people |
Good Riddance to the Population Explosion: Keys to Prevent Unsustainable Growth The nine billion people expected by 2050 will stress the planet, but cost-effective means can prevent overpopulation | Good Riddance to Overfishing: New Management Can End Unsustainable Practices Trade bans may fail, but fishing management agencies have other strategies, too, including those proved to work |
Listen to a weeklong series of interviews with Scientific American authors and editors on public radio's The Takeaway. | How Much Is Left? The Limits of Earth's Resources A graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide |
Death to Humans! Visions of the Apocalypse in Movies and Literature A list of some of our favorite dystopian views of human society facing extinction |
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