Leah Ceccarelli is a professor of communication and author of the book "On the Frontier of Science: An American Rhetoric of Exploration and Exploitation." She answered a few questions about the book ...

Poet laureate of the United States Tracy K. Smith. Credit: Shawn Miller/flickr/CC BY 2.0 Read excerpts of Tracy K. Smith’s poems, “My God, It’s Full of Stars” and “Watershed.” Read excerpts of Rafael ...

We thought we understood how things work. We don't. We thought the plaque clogging our arteries was due to too little exercise, too much fat in our diets and in our bodies, bad behavior and modern ...

No matter if you're in school or well past your days in English class, figures of speech are used every day in our lives. From songs and television shows to conversations and advertisements, we often ...

There is a very common view of science, one is inclined to call it the ‘common sensical’ view, that depicts science as the objective description of reality, telling us what kinds of things there are ...

In a common metaphor used to describe human fertilization, sperm cells are competitors racing to penetrate a passive egg. But as critics have noted, the description is also a 'fairy tale,' rooted in ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Metaphors are our shortest stories. They are ...