Daniel Rourke /stream

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The structure of the film is that of a heist movie, but if the film were to be slotted into a genre, that genre would have to be science fiction. Personally,…

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It used to be so simple. A book had an author; a film, a screenwriter and director; a piece of music, a composer and performer; a painting or sculpture, an artist;…

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Much of your life is now spent traveling along the American Northeast, from Baltimore to Boston. Like many who’ve plowed back and forth along this route, you’ve grown overly familiar with…

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In the latest exploration into the universe of organisms inhabiting our bodies, microbiologists have discovered new viral genes in faeces. They find that the composition of virus populations inhabiting the tail…

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Who Goes There? is a science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. under the pen name Don A. Stuart, published August 1938 in Astounding Stories. In 1973, the story was…

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This Web-only article is a special rich-media presentation of the feature, "12 Events That Will Change Everything," which appears in the June 2010 issue of Scientific American. The presentation was created…

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An unusual study looks at the food portions in artistic depictions of the Last Supper throughout history. The apostles have eaten better and better over the years, scholars say. The Christian…

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The film critic Roger Ebert’s recent comments about video games and their potential as art, and especially the immense stir the comments caused on discussion forums all over the internet, shows…

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As digital screens proliferate and people move from print to pixel, how will the act of reading change? America was founded on the written word. Its roots spring from documents—the Constitution,…

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A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked "The Plato Code" - the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher's writings. Plato was the Einstein of Greece's…

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Little is quite as dull as literary worship; this essay on Borges is thus happily doomed. One finds oneself tempted toward learned-sounding inadequacies like: His work combines the elegance of mathematical…

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In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that…

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The question is pretty simple: in the not-too-distant future you and I will have had our entire genomes sequenced (except perhaps those of you in California) - so how much hard…

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Because we perceive print and electronic media differently. Because Marshall McLuhan was right about some things. In case you don't recall one of the more influential thinkers of the late 20th…

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Late last year, a lavish and limited-edition volume was published to honor a masterpiece that never was and never will be: Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. At 2,974 pages and 23.8 pounds, it…

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The structure of the film is that of a heist movie, but if the film were to be slotted into a genre, that genre would have to be science fiction. Personally,…

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It used to be so simple. A book had an author; a film, a screenwriter and director; a piece of music, a composer and performer; a painting or sculpture, an artist;…

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For half a millennium, across continents and civilizations, the human readership did almost nothing but grow and consolidate itself. Constantly more people in more and more places could read, and could…

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In the latest exploration into the universe of organisms inhabiting our bodies, microbiologists have discovered new viral genes in faeces. They find that the composition of virus populations inhabiting the tail…

Bookmark

An unusual study looks at the food portions in artistic depictions of the Last Supper throughout history. The apostles have eaten better and better over the years, scholars say. The Christian…

Bookmark

The film critic Roger Ebert’s recent comments about video games and their potential as art, and especially the immense stir the comments caused on discussion forums all over the internet, shows…

Bookmark

As digital screens proliferate and people move from print to pixel, how will the act of reading change? America was founded on the written word. Its roots spring from documents—the Constitution,…

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Enter Nicholas Carr, a technology writer and Silicon Valley’s favourite contrarian, whose book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Norton) has just come out in the US…

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Little is quite as dull as literary worship; this essay on Borges is thus happily doomed. One finds oneself tempted toward learned-sounding inadequacies like: His work combines the elegance of mathematical…

Bookmark

In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that…

Bookmark

The question is pretty simple: in the not-too-distant future you and I will have had our entire genomes sequenced (except perhaps those of you in California) - so how much hard…

Bookmark

Because we perceive print and electronic media differently. Because Marshall McLuhan was right about some things. In case you don't recall one of the more influential thinkers of the late 20th…

Bookmark

Late last year, a lavish and limited-edition volume was published to honor a masterpiece that never was and never will be: Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. At 2,974 pages and 23.8 pounds, it…

Bookmark

While mainstream literary figures sometimes praise their fellow writers, rarely do they present themselves publicly as hardcore pop culture fans. Since the publication of his novels Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of…