Scientific American Magazine

Your smartphone can monitor your vital signs in real time, alerting you to the first sign of trouble

Neural computers will excel at all the tasks that make regular machines choke

Forget cell-phone payment systems--just wave your hand to charge it

People have to manage their own time. Why can't our machines do the same? New software will keep them humming

The world's first digital currency cuts out the middleman and keeps users anonymous

Bacteria extract metals and clean up the mess afterward

Year-round crops can stabilize the soil and increase yields. They may even fight climate change

A new type of battery could replace fossil fuels with nanotech crude

Tiny knives could be important weapons against superbugs

Experience may contribute to mental illness in a surprising way: by causing "epigenetic" changes—ones that turn genes on or off without altering the genes themselves

By adapting ideas from robotic planetary exploration, the human space program could get astronauts to asteroids and Mars cheaply and quickly

10 new technologies that will make a difference

A spate of floods, droughts and heat waves is prompting city and state leaders to take bold steps to protect their people and property

New fingerprint- and DNA-identification techniques solve a mystery from a 60-year-old plane crash

Small worlds writ large under the microscope

Battles among ants can be startlingly similar to human military operations

Strengthening science education is the key to securing our energy future, says Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's president

If you dropped all the world's data into a black box, could it become a crystal ball that would let you see the future—even test what would happen if you chose A over B? One researcher thinks so, and he could soon get a billion euros to build it