Light Pollution Isn’t Just a Problem for Stargazers
Artificial illumination is helping to devastate the earth’s insects
Stories by Steve Mirsky
How to Make a Mass Extinction
Journalist and author Peter Brannen talks about his book The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions ...
Teaching Rats to Drive: A New Model for Learning
Rats learned to drive tiny cars as a model for acquiring new skills
Traffic Cameras Show Why the Yankees Should Suffer Fewer Injuries in 2020
The 2019 New York Yankees’ record number of injuries led to a change in training staff that will almost certainly correlate with, but not necessarily cause, a lower injury rate this coming season...
You Traveled Far in 2019
Getting around the sun last year was some trip.
Detritus on the Moon
NASA has a list of every item astronauts left behind
Air Pollution: An Unclear and Present Danger
Journalist and author Beth Gardiner talks about her new book Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution . And CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna talks about gene editing. ...
The Stressful Discovery of Type A Personality
How worn-out upholstery in doctors’ waiting rooms revealed common psychological traits
150 Years of the Journal Nature
Nature is arguably the world’s most prestigious scientific journal. Editor in chief Magdalena Skipper spoke with Scientific American ’s acting editor in chief Curtis Brainard about her journal as it celebrates its 150th anniversary...
The Outsize Role of Tiny Mosquitoes in Human History
A new book tells the tale of the greatest predator of human beings in history
Lithium-Ion Battery Creators Win Chemistry Nobel Prize
John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino share the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of lithium-ion batteries” that have led to portable electronic devices that are rechargeable virtually anywhere on the planet...
Nobel in Chemistry for Lightweight Rechargeable Batteries
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino “for the development of lithium-ion batteries.”
Nobel in Physics for Exoplanets and Cosmology
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to James Peebles “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology” and to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.”...
How Cells Sense Oxygen Levels: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
William Kaelin, Jr., Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg Semenza share the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.” New therapies for cancer and conditions such as anemia are in the pipeline, based on these discoveries...
Nobel in Physiology or Medicine for How Cells Sense Oxygen Levels
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to William G. Kaelin, Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.” They identified molecular machinery that regulates gene activity in response to changing levels of oxygen...
Talking Health and Energy at U.N. Climate Action Summit
Scientific American senior editor Jen Schwartz talks with WHO officials Maria Neira and Agnès Soucat about climate and health and with Rachel Kyte, special representative to the U.N...
Kicking Climate Change: Wins for Health, the Economy and Security
Former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy talks with Scientific American’s Andrea Thompson about the widespread benefits of taking action against climate change.
The Mathematical Language of Nature
Physics historian Graham Farmelo talks about his latest book, The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets.
A Nobel Economist Cites Growth as Innovation
Paul Romer, an expert in what’s known as endogenous growth theory and winner of the 2018 Nobel prize in economics, speaks to Scientific American about seeing economic growth as increased value, akin to when ingredients in a recipe are used to create a dish worth more than the original raw materials...
Even If We Knew Everything That Can Be Known, We Wouldn’t Know It All
Beyond the unknown unknowns is what's unknowable
