Scientific American Magazine

Overconsumption of alcohol can cause cirrhosis and death not only because alcoholism promotes malnutrition but also because alcohol and its products disturb liver metabolism and damage the liver cells

These multiple-ring hydrocarbon molecules have been found in soils and sediments around the world. They are unusually stable, and their origins have presented an intriguing puzzle.

The visible features of the giant planet reflect the circulation of its atmosphere. A model reproducing those features should apply to other planetary atmospheres, including the earth's

The recession of distant galaxies, the average density of matter, the age of the chemical elements and the abundance of deuterium together suggest that the expansion cannot be halted or reversed.

Studies with steteograms that change at random reveal that the perceptual system extracts depth and motion information from the visual input even before we are conscious of what we see

"Pocket-sized" calculators are based on a single microelectronic chip. The chip circuits and their associated components form an information-processing system of considerable sophistication.

Most adult spiders lead solitary lives. A few species, however, are gregarious and others even build large communal webs. Both degrees of spider sociality can be observed among species native to Mexico

This new technique, which is capable of identifying and isolating closely related types of animal cells at rates of up to 5,000 cells per second, holds much promise for investigations of cell biology