Junk foods can muddle the brain's satiety-control mechanism, sending our appetites into hyperdrive
We start to pick up words, food preferences and hand–eye coordination long before being born
Making modern supermarket fruits and vegetables so big and hardy drained a lot of their flavor. Scientists now have the technology to bring it back—and it doesn't involve genetic engineering
With them, you can see veins, hidden bruises, cancer cells and more
Nobel Prize winners have published 245 articles in the pages of Scientific American. Here we present excerpts from stories in our archives that highlighted new insights into how the body functions.
Paying attention requires more than focus
Making modern supermarket produce so big and hardy drained a lot of its flavor. Scientists now have the technology to bring it back—without genetic engineering
An RNA-based treatment may stop the Ebola virus in its tracks
The other day I went to my local bodega in Brooklyn, New York and bought a 16-ounce plastic carton full of Driscoll’s strawberries. These fruit, the packaging informed me, were grown in Mexico.
Before an exotic fungus nearly wiped them out in the late 1800s, abundant chestnut trees shaped the forest ecosystem, providing food and shelter for numerous other species. In coming decades Chestnut trees engineered to battle the fungus could restore these lost relationships
Many years ago, while wandering through Amboseli National Park in Kenya, an elephant matriarch named Echo came upon the bones of her former companion Emily.
We now have solid evidence that elephants are some of the most intelligent, social and empathic animals around—so how can we justify keeping them in captivity?
We talk to ourselves to stay motivated, tame unruly emotions, plan for the future and even maintain a sense of self
By combining traditional plant breeding with ever-faster genetic sequencing tools, researchers are making fruits and vegetables more flavorful, colorful, shapely and nutritious
Kylie ran towards her fallen dragonfly and knelt beside it. One of its four wings had snapped nearly in half. She rummaged through a toolbox until she found a small tube of accelerseal, bit off the cap and squeezed a generous amount onto the wing’s fracture, holding the two pieces together.
Nature is full of thieves. Instead of laboriously collecting pollen and nectar from flowers, robber bees raid the hives of other pollinators and steal the honey within.
A selection of honored images created by scientists, professional photographers and hobbyists
Microscopes transform the way we see and understand the creatures on our planet
Croplands and climate change displace native bees
I have been fascinated with living things since childhood. Growing up in northern California, I spent a lot of time playing outdoors among plants and animals.