Scientific American Magazine

The most populous nation appears to have achieved the objective of producing enough food for all its people. It has done so largely by the adoption of improved strains of rice and wheat

Among the most significant of the liver's chemical transformations are the inactivation of drugs, the detoxification of environmental pollutants and the activation of chemicals that can cause cancer

Certain species of ants raid the nests of other species for ants to work in their own nest. Some raiding species have become so specialized that they are no longer capable of feeding themselves

Energetic collisions between electrons and positrons give rise to the unexpected particles discovered last November. They may help to elucidate the structure of more familiar particles

A star that varies regularly in brightness is vibrating like the air in an organ pipe. The fundamental vibration or its harmonics are strong clues to the star's composition and internal architecture

The eye has no shutter, and yet a moving world does not appear as a blur. The visual system works not like a camera but more like a computer with a program of specific mathematical rules

Fine nets towed in the open ocean pick up ubiquitous black lumps, apparently the residue of sludge washed out of the hold of tankers. The stuff could probably be eliminated by good tanker procedures

A hitherto unpublished page of Galileo's working notes, preserved in Florence, implies a remarkably simple scheme for equalizing short time intervals. The secret of his success, it now appears, was a song