Scientific American Magazine

The matter-eating beast at the center of the Milky Way may actually account for Earth's existence and habitability

A new understanding of how the brain generates pleasure could lead to better treatment of addiction and depression—and even to a new science of happiness

Biotechnology reveals how the woolly mammoth survived the cold and other mysteries of extinct creatures

Scientists are tracking how water atop Greenland's ice sheet pools and drains. The findings could help predict future rises in sea level

Thunderstorms give out powerful blasts of gamma rays and x-rays, shooting beams of particles—and even antimatter—into space. The atmosphere is a stranger place than we ever imagined

Experience and degrees don't matter in the classroom nearly so much as mastery of science and math--and some plain old smarts

Cells that permanently stop dividing have long been recognized as one of the body's defenses against cancer. Now they are also seen as a sometime culprit in cancer and a cause of aging

Like battlefield medics, conservationists are being forced to explicitly apply triage to determine which creatures to save and which to let go

Long ignored by mainstream researchers, the viruses that infect bacteria have a role to play in modern medicine, Vincent Fischetti says