HealthFebruary 20, 2015
The Origin Story of the Worldwide AIDS Epidemic [Excerpt]
Author David Quammen traces HIV from a forest in Africa in his new book, investigating how it came to infect more than 60 million people
History of Science
EnvironmentFebruary 20, 2015
With Cuban Détente, What Future for Its Classic Cars?
I can't seem to go a day without hearing someone say, "Get to Cuba before all the Americans get there." What exactly is it that Americans will change once they get to Cuba?
The Young American Scientists Event—Register Now
The SciencesFebruary 14, 2015
Physics Week in Review (Valentine’s Edition): February 14, 2015
Today is Valentine’s Day. In love? Or just the opposite? Express how you feel with physics-inspired Valentines—and anti-Valentines for those who perhaps aren’t huge fans of the holiday.
TechnologyFebruary 13, 2015
Air Defenses against Zeppelins, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: February 13, 1915 German Zeppelins (airships with rigid frames) bombed Liège, Belgium, on August 6, 1914, only a few days after the Great War broke out.
The SciencesFebruary 13, 2015
How 2 Pro-Nazi Nobelists Attacked Einstein’s "Jewish Science" [Excerpt]
In a chapter excerpted from his new book, science writer Philip Ball describes “Aryan physics” and other ludicrous ideas that accompanied the rise of Adolf Hitler
The SciencesFebruary 13, 2015
A Stormy Arctic Is the New Normal [Excerpt]
The Arctic is changing fast
EnvironmentFebruary 11, 2015
Gorgeous Blue-Eyed Lemur Faces Extinction in 11 Years
One of the most recently discovered lemur species of Madagascar could also be one of the first to disappear. The striking blue-eyed black lemur (Eulemur flavifrons), which was only identified as a species in 2008, faces extinction in as little as 11 years due to rapid deforestation in its only habitat, according to research published [...]
EvolutionFebruary 11, 2015
Brian J. Ford's Aquatic Dinosaurs, 2014 Edition
Via bizarre and unexpected circumstances I recently* found myself secretly and furtively attending a lecture by Brian J. Ford. Ford is a British author and researcher who dabbles widely in matters of science and science communication.
EnvironmentFebruary 10, 2015
Geoengineering Holds Promise, but the Technology Needs Work
Modified jets spewing sulfuric acid could haze the skies over the Arctic in a few years “for the price of a Hollywood blockbuster,” as physicist David Keith of Harvard University likes to say.
EnvironmentFebruary 10, 2015
Nuclear Blasts May Prove Best Marker of Humanity's Geologic Record [in Photos]
When did the Anthropocene begin?
The SciencesFebruary 9, 2015
Newton Figured Out How Tree Sap Rises
Buried in one of Isaac Newton's college notebooks is a page on which he fairly accurately theorizes on the process of transpiration in plants, two centuries before the concept was elucidated. Karen Hopkin reports
The SciencesFebruary 9, 2015
How a Wire Was Used to Measure a Tiny Force of Gravity
The crowning achievement of the 18th-century researcher was the design of the first experiment to measure the force of gravity between masses in a lab