Scientific American welcomes discussion on our social media. Just follow us on Twitter or Facebook! If you wish to take part in the discussion on our social media pages, please keep in mind our Community Guidelines.

Commenting should not devolve into name-calling, ideological bickering, off-topic rants or anti-scientific claims. With that in mind, our community guidelines are below. We reserve the right to remove any content a commenter provides and/or ban users from commenting for any reason, including if a commenter violates the letter or spirit of these guidelines.

Be friendly, or at least civil. It’s easy to come across as rude, mean, or sarcastic online. When commenting or replying, please remember that sentient people with biographies, vulnerabilities and emotions read our site and social media pages. Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, discriminatory, violent, name-calling, ad hominem, baiting and generally offensive comments will not be tolerated.

Stay on topic. Do not use online comments to discuss topics unrelated to the article. Do not use online comments for customer service. Our customer service contact information is found here.

Be scientific. Scientific American is an historically significant publication dedicated to scientific information. If your beliefs interfere with acceptance of the results of scientific inquiry, then please do not discuss them here.

Do not sell or promote anything.

Do not offer personal contact information.

No impersonation. Do not claim to be someone you’re not, and don’t claim to speak for an entity if you’re not entitled to do so. Use of real names is encouraged. We do not tolerate bots and fake accounts on our social media pages.

Do not repeatedly post the same content.

Do not plagiarize.

Always cite your sources and properly attribute quotes.

Only post relevant and appropriate links. Do not link to content that does not abide by these guidelines or that is irrelevant to the discussion.