Tales of a Stone Age Neuroscientist

By honing ax-making skills while scanning their own brains, researchers are studying how cognition evolved

A Puzzle Lies at the Heart of the Atom

Two precision experiments disagree on how long neutrons live before decaying. Does the discrepancy reflect measurement errors or point to some deeper mystery?

Drugs That Ramp Up the Immune System against Tumor Cells are Revolutionizing Cancer Treatment

Enhancing the body's own immune system is leading to promising results in the battle against malignancy

A Shot against Cancer

Vaccines that target cancer cells using their own DNA could help eliminate tumors and prevent recurrences

Friendly Germs Protect Mice against Cancer

Some types of intestinal bacteria may boost the body's ability to fight malignancy

Tourists Could Soon Overrun the Galápagos, Killing Its Famous Biodiversity

A relentless rise in visitors could ruin the famous biodiversity hotspot in only a few years

Cells That Compute Come Closer to Reality

Synthetic biologists are close to putting living cells to work diagnosing human diseases and repairing environmental damage

Bizarre, Giant Birds Once Ruled the Skies

Fossils of enormous extinct seabirds are now illuminating how such behemoths took wing

Deteriorating Plastic Threatens to Ruin Museum Treasures

Plastic in Apollo spacesuits, Andy Warhol paintings and other museum pieces is falling apart. Researchers are learning how to rescue the endangered treasures

Quantum Cuteness: Neutron Beta Decay

This toy is radioactively cute—and able to explain how a neutral-faced neutron turns into a proton with a positive expression.

5 of the Worst User-Interface Disasters

Why your intelligence has nothing to do with using technology

When Art Falls Apart

As plastic used in modern art degrades, scientists turn to nanotechnology to put it back together

April Book Reviews Roundup

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

Genetics Probe Identifies New Galapagos Tortoise Species

Known group of 250 animals found to be genetically distinct from their island neighbors

Zika Virus Threatens U.S. from Abroad

Exclusive: An interactive map, based on data from 50 state health departments, details how the mosquito-borne disease made its way to America in travelers’ bloodstreams

Natural History: The State of the Science in 1916

The Art and Craft of Paleo Toolmaking [Slide Show]

Fashioning stone-age tools is no picnic. Emory researchers spend years learning to imitate the technological skills of human ancestors who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago

Future of Medicine: How Doctors Boost the Immune System to Fight Cancer [Video]