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Scientific American was back at the FIRST New York City regional robotics competition this year.

Dear Scientific American Reader: Scientific American is conducting a survey about the future of cities, the results of which will be published in the magazine along with a series of articles on urban life in the 21st century. The survey will poll elected officials, academics, policymakers, and opinion leaders, including Scientific American readers, about ways to improve cities and their livability.

“We are definitely in uncharted waters, particularly given that the spent fuel pool appears to either not have water or have very little water.

One of the risks in writing about endangered species is concentrating too much on the cute ones. But I couldn't skip covering the African black-footed cat ( Felis nigripes ) and the scientific breakthrough that could give this rare species an extra chance at survival. The African black-footed cat is one of the world's smallest and rarest cat species, not to mention one of the least studied.

Conditions are changing rapidly at the Fukushima power plant, where at least two of its six nuclear reactors have partially melted down. The editors of Scientific American are following the developments, and part of the effort involves following various Twitter users.

Like many Americans, I have recently been diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency. In addition to drinking milk, eating dark leafy greens, and taking 2000 IU’s of D a day, I’ve also been trying to get as much sunlight as possible. When I came across this article in the November 7, 1903 Scientific American , I realized that a possible reason for my deficiency is my home’s inability to rotate

Nuclear power is evil. Solar power is our savior. Or…is it the other way around

In the March issue of Scientific American Carl Schoonover, author of Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century , describes a new computer-modeling technique that allows researchers to zoom in on the smallest components of the active brain in 3-D. To accompany the story, we've collected images from his recent book , which describes the tools that scientists have used to observe the nervous system from the second century to the present.

I'd like to imagine that an intense passion for sailing coupled with a severe case of hydrophobia were what compelled Mr.

Annette Rottger and her scientific team managed to do something that was previously thought to be impossible: they developed a primary standard for the measurement of short-lived radioactive thoron.

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the March 1961 issue of Scientific American. In the days when civilized men believed that the world was flat they had no reason to think about gravity. There was up and down

A millennium ago a physicist under house arrest rewrote the scientific understanding of optics--the study of the behavior and properties of light.