Scientific American Magazine

Airborne combustion products, toxic chemicals and radioactivity are more abundant indoors than outdoors. Should indoor air be regulated? If so, how? Putting risks in perspective helps to answer both questions

Quantum noise, or fluctuation, in light waves limits the precision of measurements. A solution is to make part of a wave quieter by making another part noisier

First identified because of its anticancer activity, the factor is now recognized to be one of a family of proteins that orchestrate the body's remarkably complex response to injury and infection

Is the earth headed for a reversal of its magnetic field? No one can answer this question yet, but rocks magnetized by ancient fields offer clues to the underlying reversal mechanism in the earth's core

This ancient mammal is surprisingly specialized. It has mechano and electroreceptors on its beak for detecting prey and is better than many placental mammals at regulating its body temperature

As the name implies, these unusual solids are remarkably light and porous, made more of air than of gel. Their structure endows them with intriguing properties that science has only begun to exploit

A 1,000-year-old group burial on Cape Cod is the first clue on a trail of evidence implying that the southern New England coast had a settled population centuries before the Pilgrims

According to theory, the constant, which measures the energy of the vacuum, should be much greater than it is. An understanding of the disagreement could revolutionize fundamental physics