Scientific American Magazine

This natural product of animal cells protects them against attack by a variety of viruses. If it proves to be effective in humans, it should have considerable medical importance

The development of ultrasensitive receivers has made it possible to use the weak radio waves emitted by a planet as an index to the temperature at its surface and at various levels in its atmosphere

Is man's ability to perceive the form of objects inborn or must it be learned? Experiments indicate that it is innate but that maturation and learning play important roles in its development

An account of Soviet investigations of the region, which are descended from the efforts of early explorers to find a northeast passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific

Between the discovery of electromagnetic induction and the development of the electric generator 50 years elapsed. Why did it take so long for Faraday's basic work to be applied?

The main constituent of connective tissue, it accounts for a third of the protein in the human body. Its nature has been clarified by dissolving it and allowing its molecules to reassemble into fibers

In the blowfly the organs of taste are located in hairs on the fly's proboscis. By slipping a slender tubular electrode over such a hair, investigators can learn much about the mechanism of taste in general

The nature of mathematics is elucidated by one mathematician's account of how a memory word used by drummers in ancient India led him to the classic problem of the traveling salesman's route