History of Science

Science museums should recruit the public in confronting the planet’s toughest challenges

A global immunization campaign in the mid-20th century eradicated the smallpox virus, one of the deadliest diseases in history

Sixty-year-old ampoule contains smallpox DNA, and it is unclear whether the virus is viable.

Even before I arrived at the annual “Dialogue” of the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, California, think tank that challenges mainstream environmental positions, I was arguing about it.

High-profile reports claiming an easy way to create pluripotent cells were flawed.

Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas, which helps drive global warming, haven’t been this high in somewhere between 800,000 and 15 million years

History is rife with unethical experiments on inmates. But with proper safeguards prisoner studies may hold the key to the accurate representation of vulnerable groups and lead to health benefits

As readers of this blog know, since 2005 I’ve been teaching at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. One of the best parts of being an academic is hanging out with cool (compared to me), young (compared to me), up-and-coming scholars, some of whom know far more about the history of science and [...]

After decades of investigation, fresh clues are emerging from Mexico’s City of Gods

A Centennial Commemoration

Nobel Prize winners have published 245 articles in the pages of Scientific American. Here we present excerpts from stories in our archives that highlighted new insights into how the body functions. 

Recommendations from Scientific American