Sustainability
Protect the Right Places for Biodiversity
Scientists can provide the info to make sure that the correct areas are chosen for protection to help ensure the continued robustness of a region's biodiversity
Stories by Steve Mirsky
The Sciences
Water Walker Wanders Worldwide
Walking on water takes a man with mighty big shoes to fill
Health
Vocal Cords Bioengineered from Starter Cells
Researchers took cells from donated vocal cord tissue and successfully grew them on a three-dimensional scaffold to produce new vocal cords that can produce sound
Math
Math Can Equal Fun
Harvey Mudd College math professor Arthur Benjamin talks about his new book The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring Out Why
The Sciences
Little Galaxy Keeps Churning Out Stars
The recently discovered small galaxy Leo P contains only about a hundred-thousandth as many stars as the Milky Way, but it's bucking the small galaxy trend by continuing to make new ones ...
The Sciences
Chimp Uses Branch to a Swat Drone out of the Air
In which Tushi the chimp extends her species's known tool use to drone removal
Engineering
Teaching Machines to Learn on Their Own
Stephen Hoover, CEO of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, talks with Scientific American tech editor Larry Greenemeier about the revolution underway in machine learning, in which the machine eventually programs itself
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The Sciences
Sad, Funny Accounts of When Animals Accidentally Attack
Every so often a critter takes a shot at making headlines
The Sciences
Political and Industry Leaders Make a Case for Basic Research
At the “Innovation: An American Imperative” symposium October 20 on Capitol Hill, industry leaders and members of Congress talked about shoring up federal support for basic research and development ...
The Sciences
Pluto Mission Targets Next Kuiper Belt Object
Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons Mission, explains that with Pluto in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will continue on to a smaller Kuiper Belt body ...
The Sciences
Chemistry Nobel: Keeping DNA in Good Repair
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for discoveries of the mechanisms by which cells maintain the integrity of their DNA sequences ...
The Sciences
2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, Aziz Sancar for mechanistic studies of DNA repair
The Sciences
Physics Nobel: Neutrinos Do Have Mass
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass
The Sciences
2015 Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for the discovery that one kind of neutrino can change into another, which shows that neutrinos have mass ...
Health
Medicine Nobel: Sifting Nature for Antiparasite Drugs
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discoveries of a medication against roundworm parasites and to Youyou Tu for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria...
Health
2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their studies leading to novel therapies against infections caused by roundworm parasites and to Youyou Tu for her work developing a novel therapy against malaria ...
Mind
MacArthur Genius Grant Winner Probes the Pruning Brain
Harvard neuroscientist Beth Stevens wins a MacArthur Fellowship for studies of how microglia cells prune away excess neuronal synapses during brain development and how that necessary function might go awry in neurodegenerative diseases ...
Sustainability
MacArthur Genius Grant Winner Makes Waste a Resource
Environmental engineer Kartik Chandran of Columbia University won a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on extracting nutrients and energy from wastewater and sewage
The Sciences
Breaking Bad and House M.D. Science Advisers Tell Hollywood Tales
Tech advisers tell STEM-winders
The Sciences
Teenage Clockmaker Upholds Long Scientific Tradition
As Daniel Boorstin, former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of History, once put it, clockmakers were the "pioneer scientific instrument makers" ...
