Science

When people take antibiotics for one infection, another can swoop in to take its place: the bacterium Clostridioides difficile, which causes severe, recurring colon infections that kill nearly 30,000 people annually in the United States, most over the age of 65. Now, researchers have a new idea for battling C. […]

When neuroscientist Sébastien Tremblay set out to manipulate monkeys’ brains with light, colleagues had sobering advice: “It’s more difficult than it sounds.” Tremblay, who works in neuroscientist Michael Platt’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania, uses light to activate or silence precise groups of neurons and probe their role in […]

The space rock landed on a frozen lake on Jan. 16, 2018.

The nanotubes are absorbed by cancer cells, then targeted with a laser that heats them up to kill the cell without damaging surrounding tissue.

What do zebras have to do with the structure of the cosmos? Imagine a single zebra in your mind. With twitching ears, tufted hair, and a visual interference pattern wrapped over muscle and skin, the animal has its own contours, which are easy to make out up close. But get […]

Scientific American’s senior medicine editor, Josh Fischman, talks about issues in medicine and public health that will be affected by this election.

When Ian Ausprey outfitted dozens of birds with photosensor-containing backpacks, the University of Florida graduate student was hoping to learn how light affected their behavior. The unusual study, which tracked 15 species in Peru’s cloud forest, has now found that eye size can help predict where birds breed and feed—the […]

Six hours after getting ill, a sick bat had associated on average with four fewer friends than its healthy counterpart.