Scientific American Magazine

Criminal law has traditionally been based on the concepts of moral condemnation and deterrence by punishment. Does the knowledge of the behavioral sciences dictate a modification of these concepts?

Gaseous plasmas pervade the universe, but it is not easy to control their properties in the laboratory. The plasmas that exist in solids are friendlier and serve very well to test theoretical predictions

A start toward understanding how it analyzes images on the retina can be made through studies of the responses that individual cells in the visual system of the cat give to varying patterns of light

Sound is as much a part of man's man-made environment as heat or light. It can now be effectively managed, notably in rooms where music is heard, by applying the principles of acoustical physics

The most widely consumed drug owes its dramatic effectiveness in reducing pain and fever to a broader function: moderating the varied defensive responses evoked in the body by disease

The evolutionary transition from fish to land animal is paralleled by the transformation of an aquatic tadpole into a frog. Essential biochemical changes accompany and implement this conquest of land

Modern instruments of chemical and physical analysis now reveal that the ancient Egyptian and Roman glassmakers were sophisticated technicians as well as skillful artists

It is a water-soaked glacial deposit that sometimes changes suddenly from a solid to a rapidly flowing liquid,causing disastrous landslides in parts of Scandinavia and Canada