Scientific American Magazine

Do the people of one culture conform to majority opinions more than do the people of another? An account of a study in which Norwegians and Frenchmen were separately subjected to synthetic group pressure

This broad, 8,000-mile-long bulge in the crust of the earth differs in many ways from the rest of the ocean bottom. It may be the result of huge convection currents in the interior

Precise analytical methods reveal the composition of single nerve cells and their satellites, the glial cells, showing how the two collaborate. The work suggests that giant molecules provide the basis of memory

Around 1900 a Hungarian baron conducted exquisite measurements to demonstrate that all bodies fall at precisely the same rate. His result, crucial to the general theory of relativity, has now been confirmed

The way in which the chain of amino acid units in a protein molecule is coiled and folded in space has been worked out for the first time. The protein is myoglobin, the molecule of which contains 2,600 atoms

Combat between members of a species serves useful functions. Death or serious injury to a contender is avoided by formal tournaments, the behavior patterns for which appear to be innate in the species

Discovered in the 19th century, these phenomena (which involve the interaction of a magnetic field and an electric or thermal current) have recently begun to find technological applications

For a century it has been widely accepted that the early Swiss built their houses on stilts over a lake. New excavations at the Lake of Burgäschi have shown that this quaint picture is mythical