A Rare Success against Alzheimer's
A gold-standard clinical trial provides evidence that diet, exercise and an active social life can help prevent cognitive decline
Features
Shredded Stars Offer New View of Supermassive Black Holes
New techniques reveal how supermassive black holes shred entire stars
Microbes with Rewired DNA Turn into Patient-Saving Drugs
By reprogramming DNA inside harmful microbes, biologists are turning them into patient-saving drugs
Unnatural Responsibilities
Synthetic biology offers unusual rewards and risks
Fishes from Toxic Springs Reveal Evolution at the Limits
Studies of fishes that inhabit toxic sulfide springs reveal mechanisms of natural selection
Why Social Media Became the Perfect Incubator for Hoaxes and Misinformation
Data scientists are studying how information spreading online influences our social dynamics and what, if anything, can be done to smooth polarization
Scientists Struggle to Determine Risky Levels of PFCs in Drinking Water
More communities are emerging as hotspots for drinking water tainted with PFCs, but scientists and regulators are struggling to determine how much is unsafe
Time to Worry about Anthrax Again
Recent insights into a long-ago accident show just how deadly bioweapons can be
Online Exclusives
Before America Joined the Great War
Editorials and Opinions from Scientific American, 1914–1917
Departments
- From the Editor
Keeping the Future in Mind: Alzheimer's Treatments and Bacteria That Can Cure
- Letters
Readers Respond to the December 2016 Issue
- Advances
New Detector Could Soon Narrow Down Gravitational Wave Sources
Telltale Tsunami Sounds Could Buy More Warning Time
Recognizing "Mom" Works in Only One Eye at a Time in These Animals
In Case You Missed It
Smog Will Choke Crops If Climate Plan Is Scrubbed
Lichens Could Be Physically Rescued from Sea Level Rise
New Window Screens Filter Pollution from Air
Is the U.S. Ready for Future Disease Threats?
NASA Technology Fights Flight Delays
- Forum
Politicians Shouldn't Troll through Scientists' E-Mails
- The Science of Health
Treating Epilepsy's Toughest Cases
- The Science Agenda
It's Time to Get a Better Accounting of What Kills Us
- TechnoFiles
User Manuals Are Mostly Gone--Which Is Both Good and Bad
- Recommended
Scientific Explorers, Pet Foxes, Science Hucksterism and Other New Science Books
- Skeptic
What Would It Take to Prove the Resurrection?
- Anti Gravity
You Could Eat Off the Floor, It Was So Resistant to Bacterial Transfer
- 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago
America Declares War on Germany
- Graphic Science
Surprise: Trillions of Insects Migrate
