Scientific American Magazine

A 10-year campaign led by the World Health Organization is right now at the point of success. The world may have seen its last case of the most devastating disease in human history

One way to harness the energy of the sun is to convert it into electricity with solar cells of the kind carried by spacecraft. Such cells are expensive, but new kinds of fabrication may make them economically competitive

The organelle of the living cell where proteins are formed consists of 58 large molecules. How the molecules are arranged in space can be determined by irradiating the ribosome with a beam of neutrons

Unknown until four years ago, they are detected at the rate of about one a month by instruments in satellites. They outshine all other sources of comparable radiation, and their origin remains a mystery

Several ways have been devised for viewing holograms with ordinary incoherent light, making it unnecessary to rely on the coherent light of the laser or even the quasi-coherent light of a mercury-arc lamp

Long-term observation of a troop of these monkeys confined in an Oregon corral indicates that the biological component of their behavior is much modified by the social component

Although in many parts of the earth they are rarely seen, they are a major dynamic feature of the planet, changing its surface and having a heavy impact on human affairs

In the final 200 years of the Middle Ages the rural population of England declined, and one village in every 10 was deserted. Excavations at one such site reveal the fabric of medieval life