April 2011
Scientific American Magazine

Digital subscribers-sign in for full access

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

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

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

Reflections from Science

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

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

Science Agenda: Our Big Pig Problem; April 2011; by The Editors; 1 Page(s)

The U.S. should follow Denmark and stop giving farm animals low-dose antibiotics

Forum: Rethinking the Dream; April 2011; by Lawrence M. Krauss; 1 Page(s)

Fifty years after the first human ventured into space, we need some creative thinking

Outsmarting Dengue Fever; April 2011; by Rebecca Coffey; 1 Page(s)

Why one scientist is vaccinating mosquitoes, not patients

Tame Your Inner Tiger; April 2011; by Charles Q. Choi; 1 Page(s)

Controlling parents tend to have children who are academically above average but depressed

Watson Looks for Work; April 2011; by Michael Moyer; 1 Page(s)

What's next for the artificially intelligent Jeopardy champion?

My, What Long Telomeres You Have; April 2011; by Thea Singer; 1 Page(s)

Researchers will soon be offering a simple test that aims to tell patients how quickly they are aging

Too Contagious to Fail; April 2011; by Carla Power; 1 Page(s)

Why bankers should think more like epidemiologists

Cracking a Century-Old Enigma; April 2011; by Davide Castelvecchi; 1 Page(s)

Mathematicians unearth fractal counting patterns to explain a cryptic claim

What Is It?; April 2011; by Ann Chin; 1 Page(s)

Smaller fleas

Arid Land, Thirsty Crops; April 2011; by Sudip Mazumdar; 1 Page(s)

Two techniques show promise for helping farmers conserve scarce water in Punjab, India's breadbasket

Too Much Information?; April 2011; by Melinda Wenner Moyer; 1 Page(s)

A series of recent breakthroughs means that early, noninvasive genetic tests for fetuses may be just two years away

Getting to Know You; April 2011; by Michael Easter; 1 Page(s)

The brain behind many of the shortened URLs on the Web talks about data analysis and how it lets her figure out which soccer team won without watching the match

Crab Love Nest; April 2011; by David Funkhouser; 1 Page(s)

A researcher spent 10 years learning what makes horseshoe crabs mate

To Share and Share Alike; April 2011; by Carrie Arnold; 2 Page(s)

Bacteria swap genes with their neighbors more frequently than researchers have realized

Patent Watch; April 2011; by Adam Piore; 1 Page(s)

Patent No. 7,866,082

The Science of Health: Why Are Asthma Rates Soaring?; April 2011; by Veronique Greenwood; 1 Page(s)

Researchers once blamed a cleaner world. Now they are not so sure

Technofiles: Seeing Forever; April 2011; by David Pogue; 1 Page(s)

Digital photos and videos are great, but don't expect your grandkids to see them

The Inflation Debate; April 2011; by Paul J. Steinhardt; 8 Page(s)

Is the theory at the heart of modern cosmology deeply flawed?

The Enemy Within; April 2011; by Maryn McKenna; 8 Page(s)

A new pattern of antibiotic resistance that is spreading around the globe may soon leave us defenseless against a frighteningly wide range of dangerous bacterial infections

Neuroscience in the Courtroom; April 2011; by Michael S. Gazzaniga; 6 Page(s)

Brain scans and other types of neurological evidence are rarely a factor in trials today. Someday, however, they could transform judicial views of personal credibility and responsibility

Can the Dead Sea Live?; April 2011; by Eitan Haddok; 6 Page(s)

Irrigation and mining are sucking the salt lake dry, but together Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority could save the sacred sea

Solving the Cocktail Party Problem; April 2011; by Graham P. Collins; 2 Page(s)

Computers have great trouble deciphering voices that are speaking simultaneously. That may soon change

The Orderly Chaos of Proteins; April 2011; by A. Keith Dunker; Richard W. Kriwacki; 6 Page(s)

To do their magic in the cell, proteins must fold into rigid shapes—or so standard wisdom says. But a more tangled story is beginning to emerge

Seconds Before the Big One; April 2011; by Richard Allen; 6 Page(s)

Earthquake detection systems can sound the alarm in the moments before a big tremor strikes—time enough to save lives

Food Fight; April 2011; by Brendan Borrell; 4 Page(s)

Genetically modified crops, says agro-research czar Roger Beachy, receive an unjustified shellacking from environmentalists

Natural-Born Killer; April 2011; by Kenneth C. Catania; 4 Page(s)

Lethal from day one, the tentacled snake uses surprisingly sly tactics to capture fish

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

Books and recommendation from Scientific American

Skeptic: UFOs, UAPs and CRAPs; April 2011; by Michael Shermer; 1 Page(s)

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena offer a lesson on the residue problem in science

Anti-Gravity: Killer Entertainment; April 2011; by Steve Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

This may be the golden age of small-screen science

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

Innovation and discovery as chronicled in Scientific American

Graphic Science: Clean Tech Rising; April 2011; by Mark Fischetti; 1 Page(s)

China outshines the U.S. as the top investor, while Europe is a close third