Who hasn't worked with a disagreeable person—and in the world of science publishing, authored a paper with one? That wasn't exactly what went through the mind of William Hoover, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, when he included an Italian co-author to his 1987 paper...
Pi may be a universal constant, but only two countries can natively celebrate Pi Day: the U.S. and Belize. That's because they are the only ones (if Wikipedia is correct) to shorthand their date format so that it can match the first few digits of pi (3.1415), or March 14, 2015...
NEW YORK CITY—No matter how smart you are, or how educated you are, you can be deceived. That's the wisdom from—and what I gather is the driving force behind–James "The Amazing" Randi, the renowned illusionist, escape artist and debunker of psychics, spoon benders, faith healers and other charlatans willing to prey on others...
After nearly 16 years, the U.S. has agreed to import beef from Ireland—the first European country to get the go-ahead since the epidemic of mad cow disease swept the continent In the 1980s and 1990s...
Diversity brings excellence to science, the workplace and other human endeavors, as research is showing. And the media plays a crucial role in shaping how society views its members, second perhaps only to the entertainment industry in such influence...
Hatchling sea turtles face daunting odds in surviving to adulthood, and only a few find a way. Just where they go to find food and hide from predators has remained a mystery until earlier this year, when Kate Mansfield, a biologist at the University of Central Florida, came up with a novel way to stick [...]..
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for play. Okay, I ripped that off from Star Trek , episode 15, but I like to think the conceit applies to the Scientific American community of readers, writers, editors and authors...
Ever wonder what the wave function is? Or what the differences are between genes, chromosomes and DNA? Or why chimps are stronger than humans?
The harvest moon is almost upon us—specifically, September 19. It’s the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, and it has deep significance in our cultural histories.
If you’re a fan of optical illusions and perceptual tricks, check out this AsapSCIENCE video. As usual, producers Michael Moffitt and Gregory Brown do a great job distilling the essential ideas and presenting them in a fun, entertaining and informative way...
Infectious agents called prions can resist standard sterilization and are difficult to diagnose, posing tough challenges for hospitals
I know, you’re disappointed that we don’t have the flying cars and moving sidewalks as promised in those old film reels from the 1950s and 60s that you may have seen in school.
The effect is as astonishing as it is hypnotic: a chain of metal beads magically arcs above its container as the beads fall to the ground. The beads in the video, made by Steve Mould, who hosts several BBC science shows, are not magnetic, either...
Lonesome George checks out a keeper in his Galápagos pen, May 3, 2011--a year before he died.Credit: Philip Yam The world’s most famous tortoise will soon make a return to public display—in mounted form.The last of his species, Lonesome George was an icon for conservation and evolution...
Fans of Brian Greene’s NOVA programs, such as The Fabric of the Cosmos, will no doubt enjoy what amounts to a 90-minute live episode. Kicking off the 2013 World Science Festival in New York City on Wednesday night, the show, “Spooky Action: The Drama of Quantum Mechanics" provides an entertaining and thought-provoking journey through the strange reality of quantum mechanics.Greene serves as host and narrator, and he gets help from stage actors who deliver famous (and infamous) lines from physics history, such as Albert Einstein saying that god doesn’t play dice with the universe, Niels Bohr responding that Einstein shouldn’t tell god what to do and Werner Heisenberg saying that Erwin Schrodinger’s wave equations were bullshit (at least that is how his German got translated to English onstage).With the help of a Princeton University colleague, Greene also conducts an onstage double-slit experiment, in which particles passing through two closely spaced slits form over time the classic light-dark interference pattern of waves...
Weather and GPS information stimulated the economy with new products and services. Todd Park, the U.S. chief technology officer, wants to repeat that success with the rest of the government’s data trove...
This afternoon, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to direct our cars, trucks and buses to a realm that doesn’t include gas stations. During a visit to Argonne National Laboratory, he will call for $2-billion energy security trust fund dedicated to research to boost automobile efficiency, enhance battery technology and expand the use of biofuels, among other clean-energy efforts...
Spotted at the State of the Union address, Bobak Ferdowsi, the Mars Curiosity flight engineer famous for his hairstyle, describes his role as an ambassador for Mars
Can you explain science with seven everyday items? We're looking for some creative minds to explain how a part of the human body works, or how a process occurs in it, in two minutes or less...
Can you explain science with seven everyday items? We're looking for some creative minds to say how a part of the human body works, or how a process occurs in the body, in two minutes or less...
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