Health
Singularity Schtick: Hi-tech moguls and The New York Times may buy it, but you shouldn't
The New York Times Sunday business section recently ran an enormous puff piece on Ray Kurzweil and the "Singularity" cult (my term, not the Times 's).
Cross-Check
Critical views of science in the news
Mind
Chain links: Is the Internet empowering or enslaving us?
I don't believe in God—at least, not any version I've encountered so far—but I do believe in free will. Free will, which I define as our capacity to recognize and act on choices, is what makes life meaningful...
Mind
Watch power: Israeli raid on Turkish boat and BP oil spill show upside of ubiquitous surveillance
In a previous post, "Grassroots spying will make world peace possible," I argued that the spread of technologies that allow us to spy on each other might also make us safer.
Mind
If religion is a side effect of sex, does that mean God doesn't exist?
In a post on Asperger's syndrome, my fellow blogger Karen Schrock manages to knock both religious believers and nonreligious rationalists in just a few paragraphs.
Health
Craig Venter has neither created--nor demystified--life
Craig Venter is the Lady Gaga of science. Like her, he is a drama queen, an over-the-top performance artist with a genius for self-promotion. Hype is what Craig Venter does, and he does it extremely well, whether touting the decoding of his own genome several years ago or his construction of a hybrid bacterium this year...
The Sciences
Are predictions of endless war self-fulfilling?
In Isaac Asimov's science fiction series Foundation, the mathematician Hari Seldon invents a method, called psychohistory, that predicts social behavior as accurately as statistical mechanics predicts the behavior of gases...
Mind
Artificial brains are imminent...not!
Scientists are on the verge of building an artificial brain! How do I know? Terry Sejnowski of the Salk Institute said so right here on ScientificAmerican.com .
Sustainability
Maybe nuclear power isn't so bad after all
Even before the colossal oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlighted the downsides of fossil fuels (as if we needed reminding), nuclear energy was looking better to me.
Tech
Grassroots spying might make world peace possible
Except for a smattering of neo-Social Darwinists, religious nuts and arms merchants, everyone wants world peace, right? In a truly peaceful world, nations would not just stop fighting wars; they would cut back their armies and arsenals to levels sufficient for self-defense and internal policing...
Mind
Why soldiers get a kick out of killing
Do some soldiers enjoy killing? If so, why? This question is thrust upon us by the recently released video of U.S. Apache helicopter pilots shooting a Reuters cameraman and his driver in Baghdad in 2007...
Blog Index
@ScientificAmerican
STAFFBehind the scenes at Scientific American
Read
Anecdotes from the Archive
STAFF
Read
Anthropology in Practice
Exploring the human condition.
Read
Beautiful Minds
Insights into intelligence, creativity, personality, and well-being
Read
Budding Scientist
Everything you always wanted to know about raising science-literate kids
Read
Cross-Check
Critical views of science in the news
Read
Dark Star Diaries
STAFF
Read
Dog Spies
Explore the science behind the dog in your bed
Read
Extinction Countdown
News and research about endangered species from around the world
Read
Eye of the Storm
The Science Behind Extreme Weather
Read
Frontiers for Young Minds
Science by and for kids ages 8-15
Read
Guest Blog
Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American
Read
Hot Planet
Climate science in a changing world
Read
Illusion Chasers
Illusions, Delusions, and Everyday Deceptions
Read
Life, Unbounded
Discussion and news about planets, exoplanets, and astrobiology
Read
Observations
Opinion, arguments & analyses from guest experts and from the editors of Scientific American
Read
Roots of Unity
Mathematics: learning it, doing it, celebrating it.
Read
Rosetta Stones
Adventures in the good science of rock-breaking.
Read
SA Visual
STAFFIllustrating science since 1845
Read
Talking back
STAFFA science blog, sans blague
Read
The Artful Amoeba
A Blog About the Weird Wonderfulness of Life on Earth
Read
Voices
Exploring and celebrating diversity in science.
Read
