Keeping with the Oscars theme, if the previously-posted World Science Festival video was a bit too long for a Sunday evening, Vi Hart has a short and sweet video of a (one-sided) Möbius strip on which she has rigged to play a musical theme from Harry Potter...
Today, maintaining privacy without guided assistance is an onerous task, whose initial costs are high, immediate rewards low and solutions fragile and constantly evolving.
Reported in Scientific American—This Week in World War I: September 19, 1914 The Belgian field army retreated into the fortified city of Antwerp only 16 days after the Germans had invaded...
He would dab on a bit of cocaine to anesthetize his eyes first. Then, to prevent air getting in, Müller would insert the lenses with his eyes under water.
Those of you following this blog know that I love me a great science music video parody. This awesome one from College Humor does not disappoint!
Land-constraints and a massive nuclear shutdown have intensified the debate over where to put new electricity generation capacity in Japan.
This post is one in a series covering, and expanding on, topics in the book The Copernicus Complex (Scientific American/FSG). The conversation usually goes like this: Do you think we’re alone in the universe?...
I’ve got an especially eclectic bunch of “Cool Sh*t” to nominate this month. Two articles by top-notch science journalists, a tough, timely investigative report by the ACLU, a sexy cable series and a classic short-story collection...
What is congestion charging? Congestion charging or pricing is the practice of setting up cordon tolls around the city on a large-scale to charge entrants for entering during peak hours...
As readers of this blog know, late last spring I spoke at a cool conference in England called How the Light Gets In, where I hung out with all kinds of professional reality-ponderers.
Octopuses and their cephalopod cousins are the undisputed masters of disguise. An octopus can change its color, texture and luminosity faster than you can say “camouflage.” So far our lowly human attempts at imitation have been quite crude...
We've all done it: We're at an event, we take a bunch of photos with our phones, we take a selfie and maybe one with a friend, we post all the images online, and we're done.
For the past few years, tech companies and academic researchers have been trying to build so-called neuromorphic computer architectures—chips that mimic the human brain's ability to be both analytical and intuitive in order to deliver context and meaning to large amounts of data...
Reported 100 years ago in Scientific American The invasion of Belgium by the German army, in a bid to outflank French forces, led to Britain declaring war on Germany this week a century ago...
This blog is the last in a series of guest posts on technology and the brain to celebrate Scientific American Mind’s 10-year anniversary.
This blog is the sixth in a series of guest posts on technology and the brain to celebrate Scientific American Mind’s 10-year anniversary.
Source: from “Middle Schoolers Develop App to Help Visually Impaired,” by Mónica I. Feliú-Mójer’s on Voices Credit: Image courtesy of Maggie Bolado From the Department of Inspiring Teenagers, meet the all-female team of six that invented an app to help visually impaired students navigate their schools...
This Week in World War I: October 17, 1914 The cover wrap of the issue has a painting of an armored car, charging into—surely not running away from!—some battle, gun blazing...
The most persistent — and infuriating — question about diversity in science writing has to be: "Why do we need diversity?" Sometimes that question is followed by this: "Isn't science color-blind?" To answer that second question first — no, science is most definitely not color-blind, any more than history or politics or literature is color-blind...
This week’s video is a preview for the movie ‘The Theory of Everything’, which premiered last week to North American audiences.
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