Scientific American Magazine

As the drifts form and the air darkens on the southern Great Plains, once more the question arises as to what causes these periodic catastrophes and what can be done to forestall them

The observations of photographic and radio astronomy indicate that the disk-shaped galaxy of which our sun is an unimportant member is itself a member of a disk-shaped galaxy of galaxies

When almost all impurities are removed from a metal, it usually exhibits unexpected properties. Many metals are now purified in the search for new materials to meet the demands of technology

A protein molecule is composed of thousands of atoms. How are they arranged? Progress has been made toward answering the question for fibrous proteins such as hair, horn, fingernail and porcupine quill

The European species is so much at home in the air that it eats, drinks and mates on the wing. This aerial existence has certain disadvantages, compensated by unusual evolutionary adaptations

What are the forces that destroyed the well-built cities of antiquity? Curiously the most effective of them were social. An account based on the ruins of Roman Minturnae

In his lifetime he was famous as a scientific administrator; today he is also known as a great scientist. He discovered induction before Faraday and radio waves long before Hertz

Blood tests are now widely accepted as evidence in cases where parentage is disputed. An account of the principles that underlie the inheritance of the various blood types