Scientific American Magazine

A "bottom-up" study of U.S. industrial performance-from the factory floor to the corporate boardroom-by a distinguished group of experts reveals worrisome weaknesses but also encouraging signs of vitality

Large earthquakes can take place not only on faults that cut the earth's surface but also on "blind" faults under folded terrain

The methylation of DNA may be a major "epigenetic" mechanism by which gene-activity patterns-as opposed to genes per se-are passed from one generation of cells to another during development

An ancient sea provides a rich assemblage of vertebrates from the Triassic period

DNA's double helix, the sunspot cycle and the sawtooth signals of electronics can be reduced mathematically to a series of undulating curves. This idea underlies a powerful analytical tool

Charged particles traveling along a crystal's planes of symmetry behave strangely: they interact with sheets or strings of nuclei rather than with single atoms

Stone sculpture is notoriously difficult to prove genuine. As prices for such works skyrocket, geochemists are being called in to help settle questions that art history and a connoisseur's eye cannot resolve

Evidence of the pale-green liqueur's toxicity eventually extinguished the fin-de-siecle infatuation with absinthe. The drink's history began, however, long before the 19th century