Until recently, the only association I made between dogs and pantyhose would have involved an unfortunate trip to the vet. Of the inanimate objects pulled from pets’ gastrointestinal tracts — from drywall and hearing aids to corn cobs and toy cars — pantyhose, and their cousins, socks and underwear, top the list. But last week, [...]

Taste-testing. © Julie Hecht Dogs don’t write. At least not in a way easily understood by people, and certainly not with a pen or pencil. You could argue that dogs “write” with their urine. Some dogs seem quite familiar with Morse code — evident by a trail of little plops left behind — while others [...]

On Tuesday, Scientific American turns 167 years old. It doesn’t exactly look like the kind of anniversary we usually celebrate, with our decimal normative number system that overvalues ending zeroes and fives, but 167 is a pretty neat number. First of all, we can insert two symbols into it to get a correct mathematical statement: [...]

This is what the post-Jobs generation thinks of print magazines: On that note, stay tuned for more digital offerings from Scientific American in the coming weeks and months. (Until then, please enjoy our apps Journey to the Exoplanets and Origins and Endings, which we’re quite proud of.) (via @laughingsquid)

Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., turns 166 years old on August 28, thanks in part to a New England man who decided to use the latest communications technology available in 1845, the printing press, to tell readers about more of the latest, and sometimes weirdest (or so it looks now), [...]

You don’t need an advanced degree in physics or biology to participate in scientific research, just a curiosity about the world around you and an interest in observing, measuring and reporting what you hear and see. The Internet makes it easy these days to take part as an amateur in sophisticated science projects around the [...]

Climate change is happening faster than scientists’ predicted. Meltdowns in Greenland and Antarctica are well ahead of climate science projections and overall warming continues to accelerate—we have just endured the hottest year and hottest decade on record. About the only thing that isn’t happening faster than expected is increasing concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse [...]

A quick shout-out to our Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina, who this week was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for the section on General Interest in Science and Engineering. She is being honored for distinguished science journalism and editing that has had a major impact on public understanding [...]

The National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW) has selected Scientific American editor in chief Mariette DiChristina as one of its "Three Wise Women" of 2009. The organization, which since 1980 has been lauding extraordinary Americans of Italian heritage as a means to create positive role models, cited DiChristina for her achievement in science journalism [...]

Our planet’s health is ailing. That’s the message in short from the 2012 Living Planet Report. Its content is sobering. We are devouring 50 percent more resources than the Earth produces annually. Species populations have plummeted by 30 percent in the last 40 years. Freshwater scarcity abounds, and CO2 levels are soaring. Yet, the report’s co-authors [...]

Time travel is tricky business. Scientists seem to always be wringing their hands over the potential implications of time travel. That is, if you believe the movies, and The Onion News Network’s analysis of Mitt Romney’s scheme to eliminate any versions of himself that sound too liberal, preventing the conservative vote! SciAm Blogs makes our [...]

The November/December Scientific American Mind, which debuted online today, examines the origins of genius, a concept that inspires both awe and confusion. Some equate genius with IQ or creativity; others see it as extraordinary accomplishment. As this issue reveals, genius seems to arise from a mosaic of forces that coalesce into a perfect storm of [...]