
Stories by Philip Yam

Philip Yam is the managing editor of ScientificAmerican.com, responsible for the overall news content online. He began working at the magazine in 1989, first as a copyeditor and then as a features editor specializing in physics. He is the author of The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting and Other Prion Diseases. Follow Philip Yam on Twitter @philipyam


Brace for (Educational) Impact

Making a Deep Impact
Hollywood tackles the threat of near-earth objects

Boom Box
A resonator boosts sound pressures to new highs

Roaches at the Wheel

Exploiting Zero-Point Energy
Energy fills empty space, but is there a lot to be tapped, as some propound? Probably not

Clean Genes

Rights of Passage
Scientists may be the last credible advocates of human rights in China

Bringing Schrdinger's Cat to Life

The 1996 Nobel Prizes in Science
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has again recognized four sets of researchers for their outstanding contributions. Here is a look at the work behind these achievements in chemistry, physics, medicine and economics...

Unicorn Hunts?
Searching for monopoles, free quarks and antimatter

Magnet on the Brain
Safer neurosurgery with magnetically steered implants

Mirror, Mirror
A whiff of supersymmetry at Fermilab

Catching a Coming Crime Wave

Remote Repair
Internet technology may allow equipment to be fixed from afar

Attack of the Killer Neutrinos

A Smattering of Antimatter
Physicists hope to get antihydrogen to live longer than 40 nanoseconds

Escher for the Ear

Bose Knows P.R.

Rubbed Out with the Quantum Eraser
Making quantum information reappear