Scientific American Magazine

Experience in a few countries where induced abortion is legal is now beginning to provide the first reliable data on this age-old, most widely used and most clandestine method of fertility control

They superficially resemble normal spiral galaxies, but something violent is going on in their central regions. They seem to have much in common with the most powerful radio sources known, the quasars

In transformation certain bacteria change their hereditary makeup by absorbing DNA molecules from their environment. The ability to do this is induced by a giant-molecule factor synthesized by the cell

In the seven years since they were first described in these pages they have made major contributions to meteorology. Now a satellite system surveys each day the weather patterns over the entire earth

Experiments with monkeys have identified the brain areas involved in the recall of various learned tasks. Memory may take the form of interference patterns that resemble laser-produced holograms

These large African antelopes can survive indefinitely without drinking. Their feat is made possible by stratagems of physiology that minimize the amount of water they lose through evaporation

The addition of constrained-layer damping to the conventional techniques of isolation and absorption provides the necessary technology to control almost all excessive vibration and noise

The skin is an ecosystem, with a microscopic flora and fauna and diverse ecological niches: the desert of the forearm, the cool woods of the scalp and the tropical forest of the armpit