February 2011
Scientific American Magazine

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Cover; February 2011; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Table of Contents; February 2011; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

From the Editor; February 2011; by Mariette DiChristina; 1 Page(s)

Too Much and Not Enough

Letters; February 2011; by The Editors; 2 Page(s)

Letters to the editor from the October 2010 issue of Scientific American

Science Agenda: A Political Wish List; February 2011; by The Editors; 1 Page(s)

With preventable diseases on the rise, the states should get strict on vaccines

Forum: The Bright Side of Gridlock; February 2011; by Francesca Grifo; 1 Page(s)

How to move the science agenda forward in the next two years

Which Pills Work?; February 2011; by Melinda Wenner Moyer; 1 Page(s)

The recent finding that vitamin D supplements are largely unnecessary exposes a rift among nutrition researchers

They Like Your Guts; February 2011; by Ferris Jabr; 1 Page(s)

Intestinal parasites may offer protection from colitis, asthma and other common ailments

The Bird Man of Baghdad; February 2011; by Gary Stix; 1 Page(s)

An unassuming 32-year-old ornithologist, in the midst of war and chaos, continues to add to the store of knowledge about Iraq's assorted bird life

Not Your Parents' Carbon; February 2011; by Davide Castelvecchi; 1 Page(s)

Materials Science

Beer Batter is Better; February 2011; by W. Wayt Gibbs, Nathan Myhrvold; 1 Page(s)

How it makes a great fish 'n' chips

You Smell Flowers, I Smell Stale Urine; February 2011; by Laura Spinney; 1 Page(s)

Each of us lives in our own olfactory world

Forces to Reckon With; February 2011; by George Musser; 1 Page(s)

Does gravity muck up electromagnetism?

Charging against the Flu; February 2011; by Jessica Wapner; 1 Page(s)

A giant magnet is illuminating how the influenza A virus mutates to resist drugs

Particles That Flock; February 2011; by Amir D. Aczel; 1 Page(s)

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are trying to solve a puzzle of their own making: why particles sometimes fly in sync

When Earth Was a Snowball; February 2011; by Carrie Arnold; 1 Page(s)

New evidence links melting glaciers with the evolution of life

Why You're Probably Less Popular Than Your Friends; February 2011; by John Allen Paulos; 1 Page(s)

Where averages and individual perspectives diverge

The Science of Health: The YouTube Cure; February 2011; by Katie Moisse; 2 Page(s)

Popular demand for an unproved surgical treatment for multiple sclerosis shows the growing power of social media to shape medical practice—for good and ill

Technofiles: An Open Question; February 2011; by David Pogue; 1 Page(s)

The success of Google's Android software doesn't prove that open is better

How to Fix the Obesity Crisis; February 2011; by David H. Freedman; 8 Page(s)

Although science has revealed a lot about metabolic processes that influence our weight, the key to success may lie elsewhere

Citizen Satellites; February 2011; by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Bob Twiggs; 6 Page(s)

Tiny, standardized spacecraft are making orbital experiments affordable to even the smallest research groups

The Blue Food Revolution; February 2011; by Sarah Simpson; 8 Page(s)

New fish farms out at sea, and cleaner operations along the shore, could provide the world with a rich supply of much needed protein

How Language Shapes Thought; February 2011; by Lera Boroditsky; 4 Page(s)

The languages we speak affect our perceptions of the world

The Inner Life of the Genome; February 2011; by Tom Misteli; 8 Page(s)

The way our genes are arrayed and move in the 3-D space of the cell nucleus turns out to profoundly influence how they function, in both health and disease

A Friend to Aliens; February 2011; by Brendan Borrell; 4 Page(s)

Buckthorn, garlic mustard and many other invasive species do not pose as big a threat as some scientists think, says ecologist Mark Davis

X-Ray Vision; February 2011; by Fiona Harrison, Charles J. Hailey; 2 Page(s)

Thanks to amazing nested mirrors, NASA's NuSTAR telescope is set to reveal hidden phenomena in the cosmos

Mind Out of Body; February 2011; by Miguel A. L. Nicolelis; 4 Page(s)

In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, a pioneering neuroscientist argues that brain-wave control of machines will allow the paralyzed to walk and portends a future of mind melds and thought downloads

Jefferson's Moose; February 2011; by Lee Dugatkin; 4 Page(s)

Thomas Jefferson waged a second revolution, fighting the image created by European naturalists of a degenerate America

Recommended; February 2011; by Kate Wong; 1 Page(s)

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

Skeptic: Houdini's Skeptical Advice; February 2011; by Michael Shermer; 1 Page(s)

Before you say something is out of this world, first make sure that it is not in this world

Anti-Gravity: La Bummer; February 2011; by Steve Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

In some cases, science and art really can't get along

50, 100, 150 Years Ago; February 2011; by Daniel C. Schlenoff; 1 Page(s)

Innovation and discovery as chronicled in Scientific American

Graphic Science: Your Brain in Love; February 2011; by Mark Fischetti; 1 Page(s)

Cupid's arrows, laced with neurotransmitters, find their marks