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Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1960--the same year that a U.S.

Living and working in the high Arctic at this time of year is full of challenges. From the small everyday stuff like sleeping, washing and using the toilet, to the bigger issues that affect our science such as icing up of instruments, freezing of your water samples and keeping a hole in the ice open when the air temperature is -37 o C.

NEW YORK -- Could coal be the key to manufacturing lighter, more energy-efficient vehicles, including electric cars? It may seem counterintuitive to use coal to reduce a vehicle's fuel consumption, and thus its CO2 output. But one scientist at a New York technical school thinks he's found a way, and hopes to market it to automakers and the growing electric vehicle industry.

If you're ever at a loss for conversation amid a group of information-graphics professionals, bring up the topic of pie charts or proportional circles.

Boreal forests across the Northern hemisphere are undergoing rapid, transformative shifts as a result of a warming climate that, in some cases, is triggering feedback loops producing even more regional warming, according to several new studies. Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees, according to new research by University of Virginia researchers. [More]

Students, parents, teachers : the Google Science Fair ’s deadline is April 4. Scientific American is a media partner, and I am a judge.

Accent matters more than looks when it comes to identifying a person’s ethnicity, according to a study published in the November Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . [More]

What could be cooler for an aspiring scientist or engineer than a hands-on project working with and learning about electronics and optics? How about one where each student ends up with his or her own digital camera. [More]

How did life start on Earth? Science still has no definitive answer

Sex is a big deal. It can change how people see their partner. . Or themselves.

DALLAS--It can't happen here. Or can it?

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the new book Demand Better! Revive Our Broken Health Care System (Second River Healthcare Press, March 2011) by Sanjaya Kumar, chief medical officer at Quantros, and David B. Nash, dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University. In the following chapter they explore the striking dearth of data and persistent uncertainty that clinicians often face when having to make decisions

The nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power station in Japan that were crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami are a lot like reactors in the U.S. They are a common, if not exactly modern, General Electric design that harnesses nuclear fission to boil water and drive steam turbines to generate electricity.

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

By Jon Herskovitz [More]