Torpedoes Are Greatly Overrated as Naval Weapon

Originally published in November 1905 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Pumping Charged Particles onto Airplane Surfaces Could Reduce Lightning Strikes  

Tests reveal that an imbalance of charge buildup can trigger airplane lightning  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

In Case You Missed It

Top news from around the world | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: May 2020  

Advancing the technology for preparing our food  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Heat and Humidity Are Already Reaching the Limits of Human Tolerance

Events with extreme temperatures and humidity are occurring twice as often now as they were 40 years ago | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Soils Store Huge Amounts of Carbon, Warming May Unleash It

Higher temperatures and wetter weather may spur soil microbes to release more carbon into the atmosphere | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Rabbit Virus Could Provide Gene Therapy

Originally published in February 1967 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

New Model Predicts Sudden Rogue Waves

Unified theory describes formation of huge, mysterious waves | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Flamingos Can Be Picky About Company

They don't just stand on one-leg around anybody, but often prefer certain members of the flock. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Cleaner Air Courtesy of Coronavirus Provides Window into a Car-Free Future

With cars off the roads, scientists can study how smog and other types of pollution change  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Marijuana May Not Lower Your IQ

Rigorous new studies should be able to settle the matter | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

DIY Tool Lets High Schoolers Practice Gene Editing  

With a few dollars, researchers replicated an instrument that typically costs thousands  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

'Breakthrough' COVID-19 Tests Are Currently Cheap, Fast--and Not Very Accurate

Antigen-based assays could be used in the home, but critics say their error rates are still an issue | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

'Breakthrough' COVID-19 Tests Are Currently Cheap, Fast--and Not Very Accurate

Antigen-based assays could be used in the home, but critics say their error rates are still an issue | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Government Watchdog Chides FEMA for Lax Flood Enforcement

The agency fell well short of its goal of evaluating local flood control efforts every five years | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Just How Dangerous Is the 'Murder Hornet'?

Its sting is excruciating to people, but it is a bigger threat to honeybees vital for agriculture | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Menopause Predisposes a Fifth of Women to Alzheimer's

Being female is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Why? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Astronomers May Have Found the Closest Black Hole to Earth

At just 1,000 light-years away, an object in a nearby star system could be our nearest known black hole—but not everyone is convinced | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Physicists Criticize Stephen Wolfram's 'Theory of Everything'

The iconoclastic researcher and entrepreneur wants more attention for his big ideas. But so far researchers are less than receptive | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Horses Recognize Pics of Their Keepers

Horses picked out photos of their current keepers, and even former keepers whom they had not seen in months, at a rate much better than chance. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

North Pole's Largest-ever Ozone Hole Finally Closes

An unusually strong polar vortex kept the hole open for nearly a month—now, it’s finally shut again | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Methane Leaks Erase Some of the Climate Benefits of Natural Gas

The switch from coal to gas has driven down CO 2 emissions, but leaks negate much of those gains in the short term | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Grief on the Front Line--and Beyond

In their own voices, health care workers from across the country reflect on coping with the coronavirus | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Galileo's Fight Against Science Denial

Astrophyicist and author Mario Livio talks about his latest book, Galileo and the Science Deniers, and how the legendary scientist's battles are still relevant today. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

'Magnetic Star' Radio Waves Could Solve the Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts

The surprise detection of a radio burst from a neutron star in our galaxy might reveal the origin of a bigger cosmological phenomenon | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Scientific American Returns Bribe Offered by Casino Cheat

Originally published in March 1901 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

A swimming dinosaur: The tail of Spinosaurus

New bones suggest Spinosaurus is the only known aquatic dinosaur. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

What COVID-19 Antibody Tests Can and Cannot Tell Us

Assays that detect prior novel coronavirus infections could reveal the extent of outbreaks. But they may give individuals false security | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Planet Nine Could Be a Mirage

Mysterious patterns in orbits of small bodies in the outer solar system could arise from the gravity of a massive disk of icy debris rather than an undiscovered giant world | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Warming Caused a Glacier in Alaska to Collapse

Pooling meltwater destabilized the glacier, sending an avalanche of ice down a mountainside | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Virus Mutations Reveal How COVID-19 Really Spread

Globe-trotting humans were the culprits  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Virus Mutations Reveal How COVID-19 Really Spread

Globe-trotting humans were the culprits  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Experts Doubt the Sun Is Actually Burning Coal

Originally published in August 1863 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

The Morally Complex Mix of Euthanasia and Organ Donation

Canada’s recent experience with terminally ill patients is instructive | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Giant Volcano Rewrites the Story of Seafloor Formation  

Tamu Massif and dozens of other seafloor volcanoes formed like sheet cakes, not layer cakes  | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

A Shiny Snack Bag's Reflections Can Reconstruct the Room around It

Researchers used the light reflecting off the wrapper to build an image of its surroundings | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

New Frontiers in Alzheimer's

Until recently, one idea has dominated research in treating Alzheimer’s disease: the amyloid hypothesis. Those therapies have repeatedly fallen short, and in this eBook we take a look at where that hypothesis stands today. We examine recent research into the spectrum of dis … | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Recommended Books, May 2020

Mysterious mushrooms, AI for facial expressions, and other new science books | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Readers Respond to the January 2020 Issue

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


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Tapirs Help Reforestation Via Defecation

The large herbivores appear to prefer disturbed areas over more intact ones, and spread many more seeds in those places through their droppings. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Stopping Deforestation Can Prevent Pandemics

Destroying habitats makes viruses and other pathogens more likely to infect humans | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

New Satellite Gives Clearest View Yet of Polar Ice Melt

Ice lost by Greenland and Antarctica outweighs any gains from accumulating snow, measurements from NASA’s ICESat-2 show | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Goldfish Eliminate Malaria Mosquitoes

Originally published in February 1917 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Camera Traps May Overcount Snow Leopards and Other Vulnerable Species

Markings on big cats are hard to distinguish, meaning one animal may be counted as two | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Virus-Infected Bees Practice Social Distancing

Bees infected with a virus cut back on interactions within their hive, but find it easier to get past sentries at neighboring hives. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

What's the Science Behind Why We Hiccup?

Lots of things seem to trigger the involuntary reflex known as the hiccups, but does science understand why that reflex happens in the first place? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

NASA Selects Companies to Develop Human Lunar Landers

Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX will each design and build spacecraft that could return astronauts to the Moon | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago

Telecommuting Could Outlive the Pandemic, Lowering Emissions

If the coronavirus ushers in a societal shift toward more telework, that could mean fewer cars on U.S. roads | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 4 years ago