How Robins Became the Birds of Christmas
It's time to wind things down for Christmas, so what better way to do it than to write a short article about robins. And here I mean the `original' or `proper' robin - the European robin Erithacus rubecula - a Eurasian passerine that also occurs in northern Africa and is (conventionally) regarded as the only [...]
Physics Week in Review: December 20, 2014
The Christmas holiday approacheth, and for those of a Maker bent, here’s how to Build A Sled For Slinging Snowballs — Winter Warfare Will Never Be the Same. If you’re more the craft-y sort, now you can deck the halls with Nobel physicists with this physics twist on the craft of cutting paper snowflakes.
Penicillins Reveal Additional Antibacterial Power
Penicillin and its relatives have been in wide use since the 1940s, but researchers have only now discovered another way that it thwarts bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports
Ramming a Submarine, 1914
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: December 19, 1914 Scientific American in 1914 sometimes used large, single-theme images for the issue cover.
First Airplane Flight Marks 111th Anniversary!
It was 111 years ago today that the world's first piloted, powered, controllable, heavier-than-air machine built and flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the air.
Beyond "The Pipeline": Reframing Science's Diversity Challenge
One of the most commonly used metaphors for describing the solution for growing and diversifying America's scientific talent pool is the "STEM pipeline." Major policy reports have called on the U.S.
Fact or Fiction?: Geoengineering Can Solve Global Warming
Neither blocking sunlight nor capturing carbon can stop climate change
100 Years of Bubonic Plague
In the last century alone, researchers have described more than 1,000 cases of plague infections in the U.S.
Humans on Mars Soonish Says NASA Bigwig
John Grunsfeld, the former astronaut who now heads NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, thinks that traveling light could get people to Mars by the 2040s
10 Original Gifts for Science and Art Geeks
It’s time again for me to offer up a few quirky gift ideas for the science enthusiasts in your life. I guarantee these will be the most original gifts under the tree!
Big Mirrors, High Hopes: Extremely Large Telescope Is A Go
In astronomy, bigger is almost always better. The size of a telescope’s aperture (or primary optical element) not only determines how many pesky little photons it can capture, but also the ultimate resolution of the image that can be formed.
Quasars, Black Holes and the Origins of Intercontinental Radio Astronomy
Not long ago I came across a piece in the Scientific American archives from the earliest days of very-long baseline radio interferometry, the technique employed by the Event Horizon Telescope.