Scientific American Magazine

Medical care has improved so much that patients expect more of it and are quicker to sue when the outcome is unsatisfactory. A wards have risen sharply, precipitating a crisis that remains unresolved

During prolonged wakefulness a sleep-promoting substance collects in the brain. Extracted from goats, it can induce excess sleep in rats and rabbits. Efforts are under way to identify its chemical structure

Thousands of years before the first pharaohs, hunters and gatherers lived along the great river. Their adaptations to their environment underlay the later development of agriculture and high civilization

These regions of unusual volcanic activity record the passage of plates over the face of the earth. They may also contribute to the fracturing of continents and the opening of new oceans

Messenger RNA from a specialized cell of one species is translated by the egg of another species. Such molecular biology experiments, done in living cells, give information on control of gene expression

New optical materials (both glasses and plastics), antireflection coatings, laborsaving computer programs and new production methods yield high-performance lenses at increasingly low cost

These insects, usually working as a mated pair, can quickly inter a carcass many times their size. The carcass serves them and their larvae as food, and both parents participate in caring for the young

Curvature of a surface is an intrinsic property that gives rise to distortion of distances on a map. The same is true for curvature of space, where the map is Einstein's general theory of relativity