Scientific American Magazine

Bringing market prices in line with energy's hidden burdens will be one of the great challenges of the coming decades

Quasicrystals are neither uniformly ordered like crystals nor amorphous like glasses. Many features of quasicrystals can be explained, but their atomic structure remains a mystery

Recurring copies of the amino acid leucine in proteins can serve as teeth that "Zip" two protein molecules together. Such zippering plays a role in turning genes on and off

To many theorists' surprise, shock waves form even in the rarefied material between the planets. These shocks sculpt the space environment and lie at the heart of a variety of astrophysical phenomena

This small, extraordinary virus causes liver diseases and a common form of cancer. New vaccines produced by genetic engineering hold the promise of eventually eradicating both

Unlike ordinary glass, these glasses respond to light, resulting in structures that find uses in electronics, optics and the decorative arts

Did the giants of the Mesozoic period lumber sluggishly, or were they formidable running machines? Techniques borrowed from modern physics and engineering may give us the answer

How deeply can language be traced? Radical linguists look back to the Stone Age. Traditionalists disagree.