Scientific American Magazine

10 ways science may jazz up our gadgets, help to solve our most intractable problems and save lives

With supercomputers and the equations of quantum mechanics, scientists are designing new materials atom by atom, before ever running an experiment

A strange fungal disease in Canada and the U.S. heralds a new threat to human health

For millennia humans have relied on one another to recall the minutiae of our daily goings-on. Now we rely on “the cloud”—and it is changing how we perceive and remember the world around us

Conventional wisdom holds that the ability to recognize faces requires a complex mammalian brain. But some insects are surprisingly adept at this task

Astrophysicists are gearing up to haul in neutrinos from an exploding star in our own galaxy in hopes that the subatomic particles will provide unparalleled insights into the physics of star death

Many wetland recovery programs have failed by trying to re-create the original ecosystems. Recent successes have focused on one or two limited goals and have let nature take it from there