Scientific American Magazine

A billionaire-funded plan aims to send a probe to another star. But can it be done?

Some advanced cancers can now be successfully treated by synthetic immune cells that are more powerful and longer-lasting than any found in the body

Poverty may affect the size, shape and functioning of a young child's brain. Would a cash stipend to parents help prevent harm?

Long thought impossible, preservation of fossil pigments is allowing scientists to reconstruct extinct organisms with unprecedented accuracy—a feat that is yielding surprising insights into the lives they led

Researchers need new ways to distinguish artificial intelligence from the natural kind

Technology to defeat the corn rootworm, scientists worry, will work only briefly against an inventive foe

Testing every newborn for a raft of known genetic risks is technologically feasible. Some worry the results could do more harm than good