The coronavirus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and staggered the world’s economy is just about 88 nanometers in diameter—138 nm if you count its spikes. In this issue of Scientific American, we show what scientists have learned so far about the structure and function of the evil genius pathogen SARS-CoV-2. Molecular virologist […]
In our information age, an unprecedented amount of data are right at our fingertips. We run genetic tests on our unborn children to prepare for the worst. We get regular cancer screenings and monitor our health on our wrist and our phone. And we can learn about our ancestral ties and genetic predispositions with a […]
“Thank you for leading us to these places of comfort,” one participant said. “It helped me feel connected to a greater sense of being, which is so needed during these times.” Her words echoed many of the participants’ sentiments in Finding Comfort, the first installment of the Hope Storytelling Project. We were inspired to create […]
Coral reefs are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. They’re also in serious danger—climate change and other threats are killing them off. But researchers have come up with an invention they think could help the reefs: 3D printed corals. At the heart of reef ecosystems lies a symbiosis between corals and algae. “Corals […]
Scientists have begun to penetrate a mystery of climate change: the effects of smoke from forest and agricultural fires on the future warming of the Earth and how it influences the behavior of clouds. Using a more precise detection technique to measure aerosols—or the suspension of fine particles of black carbon and other residues from […]
COVID-19 is cutting a jarring and unequal path across the U.S. The disease is disproportionately killing people of color, particularly Black Americans, who have been dying at more than twice the rate of white people. In some places—Washington, D.C., Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan and Missouri—the death rate is four to six times higher among Black people. […]
One morning a few weeks ago I was chatting with my friend Horacio, a mathematician in the New York City area. He told me he’d lost his sense of smell for a couple of weeks in April. He was cooking for Passover and couldn’t even smell the gefilte fish. He didn’t think much of it […]
Originally published in July 1914 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “Protest against the roller, or common, towel for public use has swept over the entire country, as it is considered a menace to public health. The common towel was succeeded by the paper towel. Now the last word in economical and sanitary innovations is the ‘air […]
Roughly 8.7 million years ago, in areas that would become southern Idaho and northern Nevada, the grasslands began to break open, unleashing curtains of lava and clouds of gas and ash that rolled across the North American landscape. Within hours, if not minutes, the land would have been pummeled by black volcanic glass that rained […]
A well-worn science-fiction trope imagines space travelers going into suspended animation as they head into deep space. Closer to reality are actual efforts to slow biological processes to a fraction of their normal rate by replacing blood with ice-cold saline to prevent cell death in severe trauma. But saline transfusions or other exotic measures are […]