Scientific American Magazine

New short-term tests can identify environmental agents that cause damage to DNA, the primary event in chemical carcinogenesis. The tests are also valuable for clarifying the mechanism of DNA damage

Recent efforts to confine a superhot hydrogen plasma in a toroidal magnetic bottle have yielded encouraging results. The feasibility of this scheme for a fusion reactor should be known in a few years

The Neolithic period is traditionally associated with the emergence of agriculture. At a site in Syria, however, some of the first villagers practiced farming, along with hunting and gathering, even earlier

Tiny coral polyps, living in symbiosis with photosynthetic algae, build huge limestone reefs that harbor more plant and animal species than any other ecosystem on the earth

The explosive death of a massive star may trigger the birth of other stars. Support for this hypothesis comes from theory and from observations of old supernova remnants and meteorites

The search for privacy in an age of electronic communications has given rise to new methods of encryption. These methods are more practical than older ones and are mathematically more interesting

Physical systems as varied as magnets and fluids are alike in having fluctuations in structure over a vast range of sizes. A novel method called the renormalization group has been invented to explain them

The green anole, often mistakenly called a chameleon, is a good subject for examining how the sex glands and the brain interact in orchestrating the sexual behavior of both males and females