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One of the pleasures of Scientific American , I’ve always thought, is that it offers armchair travelers a vicarious expedition to the exciting worlds uncovered through science. I reflected on that fact recently as I sat on the tarmac, my flight 23rd in line for takeoff at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. I was reading over this issue’s articles and again became absorbed by our cover story, “ The First Americans ,” by Heather Pringle.

Every now and then a prominent religious zealot proclaims that the end is nigh. Harold Camping is the most recent example of such a doomsayer.

According to many, downturns in the U.S. and European markets are primarily the result of unsustainable behaviors in the financial industry.

I sometimes think I could write an entirely different blog, devoted entirely to oral contraceptives. I don’t know that it would make any difference, but there is just SO much misinformation out there

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To measure a country's greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels, it makes sense to consider the whole carbon supply chain, from oil well or coal mine to a consumer's shelf, scientists reported on Monday.

A defunct German satellite is expected to plunge to Earth this week, but exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery. The massive

The little tips of chromosomes get shorter every time a cell divides, and this shortening is a mark of cellular aging. If they get short enough, the cell dies or stops dividing

It’s football season, which means marching bands, cheerleaders, doing the wave, and crowds going wild when their favorite team scores — and also more than a few bone-crunching collisions between players, a substantial fraction of which will result in injury. One of the most common foot-ball related injuries

By Terhi Kinnunen PYHAJOKI, Finland (Reuters) - Matti Pahkala braces from the chilly winds blowing from the Gulf of Bothnia as he surveys a map of the Hanhikivi peninsula in northern Finland, an area he first visited as a child.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Salvage teams pumped oil on Monday from a stricken container ship off the New Zealand coast, ahead of bad weather which could split the vessel into two and spew more oil onto beaches. The Liberian-flagged Rena has been stuck for 12 days on a reef 14 miles off Tauranga on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, having already spilled about 350 tonnes of toxic fuel and some of its hundreds of containers into the sea

By Erik Kirschbaum ROSTOCK, Germany (Reuters) - Renewable energy has created a "gold rush" atmosphere in Germany's depressed north-east, giving the country's poorhouse good jobs and great promise. [More]

By Michael Kohn ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - Inside a stove showroom deep in the suburbs of this sprawling smoke-filled city, Mam Ivermint, 80, is shopping for a new coal-fired stove -- her unlikely contribution to the cause of cleaner air. [More]

When oil started spewing from BP's Macondo well in April 2010, there weren't too many options for cleaning it up.

These plague victims were excavated from the East Smithfield burial grounds between 1986 and 1988. The plague bacteria that swept through medieval Europe had been declared extinct just over a month ago. A quick google search reveals articles with headlines such as ‘Medieval plague bacteria strain probably extinct’ and ‘Black death strain extinct’ .

On August 13, 1415, the 27-year-old English king Henry V led his army into France. Within two months dysentery had killed perhaps a quarter of his men, while a French army four times its size blocked escape to Calais and across the English Channel. Winter approached; food grew scarce