Election Science Stakes: Medicine and Public Health
Scientific American's senior medicine editor, Josh Fischman, talks about issues in medicine and public health that will be affected by this election.
Stories by Steve Mirsky
Election 2020: The Stakes for Science
Scientific American’s editor in chief sets up this week’s series of podcasts about how this election could affect science, technology and medicine.
Nobelist Talks CRISPR Uses
New Nobel laureate in chemistry Jennifer Doudna talks about various applications of the gene-editing tool CRISPR.
New Nobel Laureate Talks Today’s Virology
Charles Rice, who today shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, talked about how rapidly research now occurs, compared with his early work...
Our Health Depends on Our Homes and Work Spaces
A new book looks at the science of how our buildings affect our bodies and minds
175 Years of Scientific American: The Good, the Bad and the Debunking
We look back at some highlights, midlights and lowlights of the history of Scientific American, featuring former editor in chief John Rennie. Astrophysicist Alan Guth also appears in a sponsored segment...
Bread Science: A Yeasty Conversation
“Baking is applied microbiology,” according to the book Modernist Bread . During pandemic lockdowns, many people started baking their own bread. Scientific American contributing editor W...
The Coming or Possibly Nearly Here Storm
Former Scientific American editor Mark Alpert talks about his latest sci-fi thriller The Coming Storm, which warns about the consequences of unethical scientific research and of ignoring the scientific findings you don’t like...
Our Temporary Moratorium against Handshakes Should Become Permanent
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in an overdue development
COVID-19 Vaccine Ethics: Who Gets It First and Other Issues
Contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs spoke with Arthur Caplan, head of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s division of medical ethics, about some of the ethical issues that researchers have to consider in testing and distributing vaccines against COVID-19...
How Your Homes and Buildings Affect You
Journalist and author Emily Anthes talks about her book The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness.
African-Americans, Nature and Environmental Justice
Journalist Bob Hirshon reports from the Taking Nature Black conference, reporter Shahla Farzan talks about tracking copperhead snakes, and nanoscientist Ondrej Krivanek discusses microscopes with subangstrom resolution...
How Galileo Battled the Science Deniers of His Time
The man who discovered Jupiter’s satellites and the mountains of the moon had no patience for idiots
How Nature Helps Body and Soul
Journalist and author Florence Williams talks about her book The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative.
The Messenger Is the Message
Behavioral scientist Stephen Martin and psychologist Joseph Marks talk about their book Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why.
Misinformation and Miscalculation in the Time of the Coronavirus
COVID-19 has turned many of us into homebodies with one eye always on the outbreak
Air, Sea and Space: Ocean Health, Atmosphere Insights and Black Holes
Biological oceanography expert Miriam Goldstein talks about issues facing the oceans. Reporter Adam Levy discusses air pollution info available because of the pandemic. And astrophysicist Andrew Fabian chats about black holes...
Science on the Hill: Calculating Climate
For the fourth Science on the Hill event, Future Climate: What We Know, What We Don’t, experts talked with Scientific American senior editor Mark Fischetti about what goes into modeling our climate—and how such models are used in addition to long-term climate prediction...
Your Brain, Free Will and the Law
Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky talks about human behavior, the penal system and the question of free will.
No, No Nobel: How to Lose the Prize
Physicist Brian Keating talks about his book Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor.
