March 2012 Advances: Additional Resources

Citations and further reading for the print news section

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The Advances section of Scientific American's March issue discusses how reducing soot emissions could be a quick, if temporary, fix for global warming; explains why cramming for tests doesn't work; and examines physicists' latest efforts to make an object disappear. To learn more about these, and all our other stories, click on the links below.

Remains of the Day
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a video and podcast about the Japan tsunami debris on its Web site.

Forget Cramming
The study in Nature Neuroscience on the ineffectiveness of cramming can be found online here. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)


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Body-Snatching Flies
The study describing the new parasitic flies that may have recently started attacking honeybees was published in PLoS ONE. Scientific American was there when colony-collapse disorder was first discovered and since then all sorts of explanations have been proposed.

Backseat Drivers
S. R. Bordenstein's paper on the way microbial communities might play a role in evolution can be found in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

A New Wrinkle in Time
It might be easier to understand how the cloaking device works once you see Scientific American's animation of the time cloak. You can also find the original paper in Nature.

Probing the Depths
See Jill McDermott's research sites and photographs of the submersibles at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Web site.

Are University Labs Criminally Dangerous? Scientific American covered the tragic case of Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji in-depth when it first happened in 2010. Recently, the University of California, Los Angeles, issued a response to the charges brought against them. View the U.S. Chemical Safety Board's video about academic lab safety here.

It's All in the Tail
See videos of the leaping lizards that inspired engineers to construct a new robotic vehicle online.

Soot Soldiers
The economic benefit of cutting soot is described in this paper in Science.

Stars That Go Out with a Bang
The complete post on dying stars can be found here—along with links to some of the brightest bangs we've seen so far.

Your Appendix Could Save Your Life
You can read the entire blog about your trusty appendix here.

Rose Eveleth is a writer and producer who explores how humans tangle with science and technology. She's the creator and host Flash Forward, a podcast about possible (and not so possible) futures, and has covered everything from fake tumbleweed farms to million dollar baccarat heists.

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