Scientific American Magazine

It is widely believed that poor children lag in school because they are members of a disadvantaged group. Experiments in a school suggest that they may also do so because that is what their teachers expect

The injection of pure oxygen into a mixture of molten iron and scrap greatly speeds up the refining of steel. A process based on the use of oxygen is rapidly replacing the open-hearth method of steelmaking

Experiments in which two light pulses are aimed at one end of a ruby crystal and three light pulses are detected emerging from the other end are explained in terms of the crystal's inherent "phase memory"

After years of debate many lines of evidence now favor the idea that the present continents were once assembled into two great land masses: Gondwanaland in the south, Laurasia in the north

Bacteria that may barely infect a trivial wound can produce enough toxin to cause the severe and often fatal symptoms of this disease. Tetanus is hard to treat, but it could be eradicated by immunization

The tiny grains that carry the male genetic material of plants are closely studied with, among other instruments, the scanning electron microscope. Their baroque architecture raises fundamental questions

Some 3,000 years ago the Persians learned how to dig underground aqueducts that would bring mountain ground water to arid plains. Today the system provides 75 percent of the water used in Iran

Modern methods of insect control call for detailed knowledge of an insect's physiology and behavior. Reproduction in Aedes aegypti, the yellow-fever mosquito, is surprisingly elaborate