Behavior & Society
Flat Earthers: What They Believe and Why
Michael Marshall, project director of the Good Thinking Society in the U.K., talks about flat earth belief and its relationship to conspiracy theories and other antiscience activities.
Stories by Steve Mirsky
Math
Exponential Infection Increases Are Deadly Serious
Listen in as I use two calculators to track the difference in numbers of infections over a short period of time, depending on how many people each infected individual infects on average...
Public Health
COVID-19: Predicting the Path and Analyzing Immunity
Scientific American contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs continues to report on the coronavirus outbreak from his home in Kirkland, Wash., site of the first U.S. cases. In this installment, he talks with researchers about what their models show for the future of the pandemic and on research to create tests to see who has developed immunity...
Behavior & Society
Some Kinds of Doctors Get More Speeding Tickets Than Others
Make way for emergencies—but go safely
Public Health
COVID-19: How and Why the Virus Spreads Quickly
Scientific American contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs reports from the original U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak: Kirkland, Wash. In this installment of our ongoing series, he talks with researchers about the properties of the virus and why it spreads so quickly...
Conservation
COVID-19: The Wildlife Trade and Human Disease
Christian Walzer, executive director of global health at the Wildlife Conservation Society, talks about how the wildlife trade, especially for human consumption, can lead to disease outbreaks...
Public Health
David Quammen: How Animal Infections Spill Over to Humans
In this 2012 interview, David Quammen talks about his book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, which is highly relevant to the emergence of the coronavirus that has changed our lives...
Mental Health
COVID-19: Dealing with Social Distancing
Judy Moskowitz, a professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University, talks about ways to cope during this time of missing out on our usual diet of social interactions.
Public Health
Coronavirus Hot Zone: Research and Responses in the U.S. Epicenter
Scientific American contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs reports from the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak: Kirkland, Wash. In this installment of our ongoing series, he talks with researchers about the efforts to create vaccines and treatments and the challenges the outbreak poses to cancer patients and others who are immunocompromised...
Public Health
Coronavirus Hot Zone: The View from the U.S. Epicenter
Scientific American contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs reports from the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak: Kirkland, Wash. In this first installment of an ongoing series, he looks at why children seem to weather this disease better than adults and the complicated issue of shuttering schools...
Space
The New Cosmos: A Conversation with Ann Druyan
Emmy and Peabody Award–winning science writer, producer and director Ann Druyan talks about Cosmos: Possible Worlds, the next installment of the Cosmos series.
Wellness
Advancing Efforts in Disease Interception
Ben Wiegand, global head of the World without Disease Accelerator at Janssen, the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, talks about efforts to prevent a disease or to identify it in its earliest stages for more effective treatments...
Evolution
Kirk, Spock and Darwin
Duke University evolutionary biologist Mohamed A. F. Noor talks about his book Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution, Genetics, and Life on Other Worlds ...
Environment
Light Pollution Isn’t Just a Problem for Stargazers
Artificial illumination is helping to devastate the earth’s insects
EARTH
How to Make a Mass Extinction
Journalist and author Peter Brannen talks about his book The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions ...
Cognition
Teaching Rats to Drive: A New Model for Learning
Rats learned to drive tiny cars as a model for acquiring new skills
Math
Traffic Cameras Show Why the Yankees Should Suffer Fewer Injuries in 2020
The 2019 New York Yankees’ record number of injuries led to a change in training staff that will almost certainly correlate with, but not necessarily cause, a lower injury rate this coming season...
Space
You Traveled Far in 2019
Getting around the sun last year was some trip.
Space
Detritus on the Moon
NASA has a list of every item astronauts left behind
Public Health
Air Pollution: An Unclear and Present Danger
Journalist and author Beth Gardiner talks about her new book Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution . And CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna talks about gene editing. ...
