Scientific American Magazine

An account of a study of how medical care is financed in the nation's largest city: New York. One finding is that nearly a third of the bill for personal medical services in the city is paid out of public funds

Telescopes carried to high altitudes can capture radiation that never reaches the ground. One such observation of infrared rays indicates that the clouds of Venus are composed of ice crystals

A substance is said to be “undercooled” when it remains liquid below its “equilibrium crystallization temperature,” or nominal freezing point. The study of such liquids has shed light on the freezing process

How does one nerve cell transmit the nerve impulse to another cell? Electron microscopy and other methods show that it does so by means of special extensions that deliver a squirt of transmitter substance

There has been evidence for many years that hereditary information exists apart from the chromosomal genes. Now nonchromosomal genes have been identified by the traditional methods of genetic analysis

His “pile,” or battery, opened the age of electric power and settled his celebrated argument with Luigi Galvani. Curiously he then played no part in the epochal developments that his invention made possible

It has been assumed that the intelligence of animals on various rungs of the evolutionary ladder differs only in degree. New experiments on animals from fish to monkey show that the differences are qualitative

New tools for probing the electric and magnetic fields of individual atoms in a solid can detect changes in the electronic structure that take place when the atoms are forced closer together by high pressure