Public Health
AI Helps Small City Pull Toxic Lead Water Service Lines from the Ground Faster
Benton Harbor, Mich., needs to exhume thousands of corroded lines, and a machine learning algorithm is helping to figure out where to dig first.
"Water"
IQ2O: Getting Smart About Water
The current state of our water supply has been called a crisis in slow motion, facing a perfect storm of higher demands from a growing population, changing weather patterns due to climate change and safety threats caused by decaying infrastructure...
Public Health
Flint's Lead-Tainted Water May Not Cause Permanent Brain Damage
The contamination of drinking water was a public health disaster, but children who were exposed can still be helped
Environment
Parched California Tries to Grab Storm Water before It Escapes
A network of basins and wells, designed by geologists, can channel storm runoff into natural underground vaults before it vanishes into the sea
Public Health
Q&A: What Really Happened to the Water in Flint, Michigan?
Flint Water Study investigator Marc Edwards tells Scientific American how the city's water got so toxic
Environment
Antinuclear Austria Should Lead the Way on Nuclear Power
Though constitutionally outlawed, atomic energy is ripe for development in the central European country
Environment
Drought-Plagued Western States Play Politics with Water
The latest in ProPublica's “Killing the Colorado” series looks at how, despite decades of accepted science, California and Arizona still miscount their water supplies
Environment
Turning to Bacteria to Fight the Effects of Climate Change
Recently the United Nations warned that the world could suffer a 40 percent shortfall in water by 2030 unless countries dramatically cut consumption.
Environment
Mesquite Invasion Threatens a Unique Species in India
It's almost barbeque season, which means that for many of us it's just about time to break out the mesquite. But mesquite isn't all that popular when it isn't providing a nice, smoky flavor to our burgers and chicken...
Environment
What to Wear to Swim in America's Most Polluted Waters [Video]
A swim with sewage aims to call attention to cleaning the Gowanus Canal, and other polluted waters in the U.S.
Environment
What about Earth’s Microbiome?
The latest temperature readings from Antarctica are giving the world pause, along with the finding that 70 percent of the western Antarctic ice shelf has melted.
Cell Phones Monitor Water, Soil on African Farms [Q&A]
As a middle school student in Tallahassee, Florida, Kelly Caylor built a weather balloon for the science fair. Decades later, he's distributing high-tech environmental sensors, or "pods," throughout sub-Saharan Africa...
Environment
Keeping Tiny Delta Smelt Alive in Captivity is No Small Feat
The delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) may be all but extinct in the wild, but it turns out that hope is not quite lost for this controversial California fish.
Evolution
With 6 Left, Controversial Fish Species Faces Extinction
Are we about to witness the extinction of the controversial delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus)? The most recent survey for the tiny fish, over which decades of battles over water rights have been fought, counted just four females and two males...
Environment
Modern Day Alchemists Turn Toxic Runoff Into Valuable Pigments
Artists have long used odd things in their work – Marcel Duchamp’s urinal on a pedestal comes to mind – but even when unusual ingredients are less obvious, they can be present...
Environment
NYC's East River Ice Floes Are a Throwback to the 1800s
More than a century ago, New York City's East River would freeze over every few decades, creating major issues for commuters who relied on ferries for access to Manhattan from the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens...
Window To A Wetter Past In Tucson
When I lived in Tucson a few years back, I often wondered why a city even existed there. Modern Tucson is completely dry, save a few artificial ponds propped up for the golfing set.
Technology
Scientific American Editor's Picks for the Top Tech Stories of 2014
Wallets, wreckage and digital coin. Before the new year appears, let's look at some of the most important technology stories Scientific American covered over the past 12 months.
El espacio
Rosetta se trae abajo la hipótesis de los orígenes cometarios del agua de la Tierra
¿Fueron los cometas o los asteroides los responsables de traer el agua a la Tierra? Nuevos hallazgos de la nave Rosetta sugieren que los asteroides son la mejor apuesta para responder la pregunta...
Space & Physics
Rosetta Pours Cold Water on the Cometary Origins of Earth's Oceans
In the Enuma Elish, a Babylonian epic that recounts the creation of the world, the heavens and the Earth emerge from a primordial abyss of brackish water
