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One of the pleasures of editing a magazine like Scientific American, with its 166-year history as the country’s longest continuously published magazine, is getting a “you are there” view of science as it was whenever I take a spin through our digital archives . The other day, while reading some 100-year-old prose, I was reminded of a famous incident.

In the world of science, it s publish or perish. Researchers who publish a greater number of papers in high-status journals are more likely then their colleagues to win tenure positions, research grants, and prestigious reputations. The competition is fierce enough to compel some scientists to cheat.

The Advances section of Scientific American 's November issue took readers into the air with the world's highest flying geese, back in time with an unlikely ancestor, into space to rendezvous with some garbage, to the Internet for a new way of conducting clinical trials, and beyond. For readers interested in learning more about the developments described in this section, a list of further background material follows: "On the Trail of Space Trash" [More]

Norman F. Ramsey may not be a household name, but he was a giant of 20th-century experimental physics.

Who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo? If you’re a diehard Star Wars fan, you know the answer is Han Solo.

“Officers, life doesn’t have to be ugly. See, look at the birds out there. Listen to their call: ‘Oo-wee! Oo-wee! Oo-wee! Oo-wee!” — Beverly Sutphin, Serial Mom Alas, as fans of John Waters’ masterpiece know, Beverly’s love of her feathered friends didn’t extend to homo sapiens

Art and politics don’t generally mix. Just ask Spanish painter Francisco Goya

Apparently yesterday was Global Handwashing Day ! This is a day designed to encourage awareness of proper handwashing procedures and in the spirit of this I thought I’d take a look at a paper that came out recently about the amount of

Geneticist Oliver Smithies is a toolmaker. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 for discoveries that led to the development of knockout mice

Last month a BBC news story made the Internet rounds, with a somewhat sensational headline declaring the “first Irish case of death” by spontaneous human combustion (SHC). The badly burnt body of a 76-year-old man was found in his Galway home on December 22, 2010, lying on his back with his head close to an open fireplace. There was no trace of accelerant, no evidence of foul play, and “forensic experts” concluded that the fire in the fireplace hadn’t caused the blaze.

In recent months, politicians cranking up their campaigns for the 2012 presidential elections have made some science claims that might be called interesting at best. Whether it's Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) comparing himself with Galileo or Sen.

Credit: IStockphoto I knew I wasn’t like the other kids. Oh sure, I collected baseball cards and model airplanes, but not with the passion that I saved for my real obsession--collecting each and every element of the periodic table .

I confidently believe that increasing the use of social media for outreach by scientists will positively affect how the public views and understands science . I stand by my statement that part of our job is to improve science communication, and as the world turns to the internet, social media is vital to that cause . So let’s get selfish for a moment here: I’m telling you that you should take the extra time to add social media to your schedule ( see my post on having time, too ).

Ada Lovelace Day allows us an opportunity to highlight the work of women in science.

Lady Ada Lovelace was a contemporary and colleague of Charles Babbage , he innovator of the programmable