Policy
Readers Respond to the October 2022 Issue
Letters to the editor for the October 2022 issue of Scientific American
Latest Stories
Neuroscience
Acting Out Dreams Predicts Parkinson’s and Other Brain Diseases
Enacted dreams could be an early sign of Parkinson’s disease
Public Health
How the U.S. Lost Years of Life
Many countries saw drops in life expectancy during the pandemic, but some populations have suffered more than others
Medicine
Better Patient Care Calls for a ‘Platinum Rule’ to Replace the Golden One
A new principle in medicine focuses on understanding patients’ values, not assuming they share your own
Renewable Energy
This Common Aquatic Plant Could Produce Buckets of Biofuel
Engineered duckweed could be a prolific “green” oil producer
Planetary Science
Cataclysmic Collisions May Explain ‘Forbidden’ Exoplanets
A new model could explain the scarcity of certain planet sizes
Extraterrestrial Life
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life as We Don’t Know It
Scientists are abandoning conventional thinking to search for extraterrestrial creatures that bear little resemblance to Earthlings
Policy
Adorable Voles, Life as We Don’t Know It and Better Cement
Love in the brain, how dreams predict disease and better words for climate change in this month’s issue of Scientific American
Pharmaceuticals
How Antidepressants Help Bacteria Resist Antibiotics
A laboratory study unravels ways antidepressants and other non-antibiotic drugs can contribute to drug resistance
Archaeology
Did Plants Domesticate Humans? Watch The First Entanglement
Archaeologists studying one of the birthplaces of agriculture find a complex interplay between human actions and the workings of nature and genetics.
