How Universities Can Keep Foreign Governments from Stealing Intellectual Capital

The arrest of a Harvard scientist earlier this year on charges of lying about working for the Chinese government was a wake-up call | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Let's Defund the Pentagon, Too

We must begin moving beyond militarism, as Martin Luther King urged more than 50 years ago | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Warming Could Lower One Barrier to Invasive Fish Reaching Great Lakes

Mussels in the lakes, themselves invasive species, may not be able to outcompete Asian carp for food, as previously thought | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Black Images Matter: How Cameras Helped—and Sometimes Harmed—Black People

From Frederick Douglass to George Floyd, photography has been key for racial justice, but cameras also were used to hurt | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Hypnosis Can Cure Lying But not Lack of Ambition

Originally published in February 1900 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Stereotypes Harm Black Lives and Livelihoods, but Research Suggests Ways to Improve Things

Management researcher Modupe Akinola explains on how stereotypes hurt Black Americans and what we can do to counter them | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Drones Capture Close Encounters between Great White Sharks and Beachgoers

Over the past decade, the number of encounters between humans and sharks swimming off the coast of California has risen dramatically . Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, says this summer is shaping up to be a major year for these sha … | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Vaccinations Have Sharply Declined Nationwide during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Rates of childhood immunization have fallen across the U.S., raising the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks​ | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Coronavirus is Attacking the Navajo 'Because We Have Built the Perfect Human for it to Invade'

A traditional Diné storyteller explains how disadvantage and injustice have shaped her people’s encounter with COVID-19 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Animals Use Social Distancing to Avoid Disease

Lobsters, birds and some primates use quarantine to ward off infections | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Animals Use Social Distancing to Avoid Disease

Lobsters, birds and some primates use quarantine to ward off infections | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Bat Says Hi As It Hunts

Velvety free-tail bats produce sounds that help them locate insect prey, but that simultaneously identify them to their companions. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

More U.S. Homes Are at Risk of Repeat Flooding

The significant growth in such properties has come despite billions spent to protect them | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

To Beat a Computer at Chess, Prevent It from Learning

Originally published in February 1950 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Summer on Mars: NASA's Perseverance Rover Is One of Three Missions Ready to Launch

A new generation of orbiters, landers and rovers will study the Red Planet as never before, setting the stage for returning pristine samples to Earth | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Social Science Modeling

It's known as the "curse of dimensionality," and it's why our estimates of how a disease will behave will always have imprecision | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

How Human Brains Are Different: It Has a Lot to Do with the Connections

Different mammals demonstrate common patterns in brain connections. But our own species has a few twists of its own | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Forests Getting Younger and Shorter

Old, big trees are dying faster than in the past, leaving younger, less biodiverse forests worldwide that store less carbon. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Climate Denial Spreads on Facebook as Scientists Face Restrictions

The company recently overruled its scientific fact-checking group, which had flagged information as misleading | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Welcome Anyons! Physicists Find Best Evidence Yet for Long-Sought 2D Structures

The ‘quasiparticles’ defy the categories of ordinary particles and herald a potential way to build quantum computers | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Mirage Seen from Buffalo Is Toronto in the Sky

Originally published in August 1894 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

The Biggest Psychological Experiment in History Is Running Now

What can the pandemic teach us about how people respond to adversity? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Lessons for COVID-19 from the Early Days of AIDS

A pioneer in the fight against HIV reflects on the dangers of excess optimism about a coronavirus vaccine | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

On Crazyism, Jerkitude, Garden Snails and Other Philosophical Puzzles

Eric Schwitzgebel investigates an eclectic assortment of mysteries with (unintentional?) irony and humor | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Stingers Have Achieved Optimal Pointiness, Physicists Show

A single equation describes the shapes of stingers, spikes and spines throughout the natural world | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Quantum Universe

Strange and probabilistic, physics at the smallest scales is driving innovation and research into the nature of reality. In this eBook, we examine the latest mind-bending studies in quantum mechanics, including theoretical mysteries such as entanglement, real-world applications, … | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Speech Recognition Tech Is Yet Another Example of Bias

Siri, Alexa and other programs sometimes have trouble with the accents and speech patterns of people from many underrepresented groups | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Australian Plant Species Face 'Imminent Extinction' From Invasive Pathogen

The once-common native guava has nearly vanished—killed off by an invasive fungus that arrived just 10 years ago. Other plant species may soon follow | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Readers Respond to the March 2020 Issue

Letters to the editor from the March 2020 issue of Scientific American | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Pathology

Science in meter and verse  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Coronavirus News Roundup, June 27-July 3

Pandemic highlights for the week | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Wireless Technology Could Help Climate-Proof the Internet

Such a system could bypass the fiber-optic cables that can be severed when storms down utility poles | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Color-Changing Ink Turns Clothes into Giant Chemical Sensors

A silk-based substance could lead to new wearables | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Why People Are Toppling Monuments to Racism

Statues are ideological powerhouses that compress whole systems of authority into bodies of bronze or marble | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Young Great White Sharks Eat Off the Floor

The stomach contests of young great white sharks showed that they spend a lot of time patrolling the sea floor for meals. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Disaster Loans Entrench Disparities in Black Communities

Systemic inequities such as credit scores mean Black home and business owners receive fewer federal relief loans than white ones | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

France Declares Open Season on Snails

Originally published in June 1909 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

'Hybrid' Quantum Networking Demonstrated for First Time

By exploiting the wave-and-particle-like nature of light, a new technique offers the best of both worlds | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Why Does the Phrase "Woman Scientist" Even Exist?

It's ungrammatical, plus it suggests we’re an exotic species—but it can also remind people that STEM isn’t just for men | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

The Dentist Will See You Now: But Will You See the Dentist?

Dental practices are taking measures to keep patients safe. Some people are wary, however | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Tweets Reveal Politics of COVID-19 

Political scientists analyzed congressional tweets and observed how Republicans and Democrats responded differently to the virus. Christopher Intagliata reports.  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

FEMA Flood Maps Miss Risk to Millions of Homes

The new analysis could help property owners, municipalities and financial institutions better prepare for future inundation | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Rape Kits Are Sitting on Shelves, Untested

Evidence gathered in sexual-assault cases could catch more criminals—if anyone bothered to look | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Baby Bottles Are the Best Way to Drink in Space

Originally published in June 1959 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Know the Enemy

Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

An Elemental Problem with the Sun

A decades-long dispute over how much carbon, nitrogen and oxygen lie within our closest star has implications for the entire universe | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

The Problem of 'Colonial Science'

Conservation projects in the developing world should invest in local scientific talent and infrastructure | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Astronomers May Have Glimpsed Light from Merging Black Holes

If confirmed, the controversial result could open new vistas on cosmic collisions | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago