Everyday Science

The last place anyone expects to find a designer is in a hospital, clinic or operating room, but those are exactly the spaces where I embed myself.

For years, I’ve been getting e-mails from people who praise my brilliant research on terrorism and then ask me tough questions about the topic

The household pests achieve night vision by pooling light signals over time

The acoustics behind the “popping” sounds of no-frost fridges

When employers forbid paid time off for illness, infectious workers spread disease and hurt business

As messaging services eat into e-mail, what are we losing—and gaining?

Being nice, paying attention and praising a partner’s strengths all pay off in a long-term relationship

Spotted nutcrackers take perishability into account when storing food for later

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

The lung ailment is a leading killer in the U.S.

Sometimes you want to learn a “new” multiplication algorithm from a general interest math book, sometimes you want to learn why voting systems are doomed to imperfection, and sometimes you just want to play with numbers, patterns, and pictures.

A physics project from Science Buddies