Scientific American Magazine

The simple magic of their shape and colors still puzzles

Where do rainbows come from? What about flying cars, love and LSD?

A long-standing dream

Large brains may have led to the evolution of amour

The small fry of the solar system have troubled pasts

Mobile music rocked the record industry

They guide sound to the sensitive middle ear

Their inventor may not have known how they actually work

Its probability-based view of misfortunes helped to shape the scientific outlook

Most new inventions quickly fall into oblivion; some stick

These wonder-drug molecules might have evolvedto help bacteria speak with their neighbors, not kill them

Did the wrong man get credit for the world's first permanent pump?

Cheap steel was key to allowing the routine design of parts that rolled against one another

The earth's spin influences hurricanes but not toilets

The answer to the age-old riddle is biologically obvious

They long predate the smile

Invention of the stirrup may rival that of the longbow and gunpowder

When a cells controls break down, chaos is unleashed

Preparing foods with fire may have made us humans what we are

An inquisitive Swiss chemist sent himself on the first acid trip

Their origin is one of the deepest questions in modern physics

The essential parts for walking on land evolved in water

One of the first electrical appliances made its way into the home as a purported medical device

A substitute for coins turned into a passport for globalization

A once overlooked form of carbon may represent the future of technology

Even apparently irrational human choices can make sense in terms of our inner logic

An eggshell membrane evolved into the organ that lets fetuses grow in the womb

"Realistic" imagery depends on relatively recent cultural assumptions and technical skills

Solving the riddle of its lethal contagion modernized the understanding of disease

Despite its shortcomings, the iconic design will likely stick around

What was half an eye good for? Quite a lot, actually

A now routine automotive feature pitted an individual inventor against the entire industry

Infertility treatments led to reproductive liberation

Its hardness is natural; its value is not

Programmable textile machinery provided inspiration for the player piano and the early computer

Cannibalism takes its revenge on modern farms

A failure for photography, it was long irreplaceable for duplicating house plans

Barbs became plumes long before birds took wing--in fact, long before birds

The viral infections origin among apes might hold a key for someday taming it

Structure, strength and storage in one package

The first recordings remained silent for 150 years

Belief in the supernatural may have emerged from the most basic components of human cognition

The natural pigment was once a "precious" color

Our unique expressiveness may have a three-million-year-old pedigree

To create one typically means you have to destroy something, be it a single particle or an entire star

Mixing the bitter treat with milk was the popular breakthrough

It emerged not with a quick flip of the switch but with a slow breaking of the dawn

Still powering the world's vehicle fleet 130 years on

The yummy baked good is one of America's first and finest contributions to world cuisine

Not needed, but not useless

The global information resource spun out of research into fundamental physics

The long, strange trip of continental drift

The information age began with the realization that machines could emulate the power of minds

Fresh clues hint at how the first living organisms arose from inanimate matter

The first step in figuring out how the human mind arose is determining what distinguishes our mental processes from those of other creatures

Cosmologists are closing in on the ultimate processes that created and shaped the universe

A powerful urge to understand the emergence of the cosmos or even life itself fuels the scientific enterprise