Vol. 3, No. 23
THIS WEEK: The hazards of headers, fish that sire fry after dying, a neural switch for obsessive behavior and Tom Siegfried on the molecular secrets to staying mentally sharp.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED| RANDOMNESS
Even if science can’t make life longer, perhaps a pill can make a long life better
To live long and prosper (physically, not financially), you’d probably rather take a pill than starve yourself. So far, though, most of the evidence says very-low-calorie diets are the best strategy for living a longer life. At least if you’re a worm or a fly…
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Vol. 3, No. 22
THIS WEEK: Roaches that won’t take the bait, the unseen perils of interplanetary flight, the birth of French winemaking and Rachel Ehrenberg on what happens to you online after you die.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG| CULTURE BEAKER
Computer scientists grapple with how to manage the digital legacy of the departed
In April, Google added to its services an Inactive Account Manager, which lets you designate an heir who will control your Google data when you die. You choose a length of inactivity, and if your accounts are ever quiet for that long, Google will notify your heirs that they’ve inherited access to your Gmail correspondence, YouTube videos or Picasa photo albums — whatever you specify…
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Vol. 3, No. 21
THIS WEEK: Kepler’s legacy, the fungal plenitude of the human foot, progress toward a universal flu vaccine and Tom Siegfried on how microbes may influence our moods.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED| RANDOMNESS
Microbes at home in your gut may also be influencing your brain
When your gut grumbles or growls, it’s speaking to your brain. And it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Evolution favors guts that can tell a brain what they want.
So it’s not surprising that the brain and the gut should have a reliable communications connection. But suppose the gut’s messaging system was hacked by foreign invaders sending a different sort of message, messing with your mind. Guess what? It is…
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Vol. 3, No. 20
THIS WEEK: Kepler’s exit, cloning embryonic stem cells, billion-year-old groundwater deposits and Julie Rehmeyer on an abstract branch of mathematics that is proving surprisingly useful.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: JULIE REHMEYER| MATH TREK
One of the most abstract fields in math finds application in the ‘real’ world
Every pure mathematician has experienced that awkward moment when asked, “So what’s your research good for?” There are standard responses: a proud “Nothing!”; an explanation that mathematical research is an art form like, say, Olympic gymnastics (with a much smaller audience); or a stammered response that so much of pure math has ended up finding application that maybe, perhaps, someday, it will turn out to be useful…
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Vol. 3, No. 19
THIS WEEK: Tiny flying robots, Europe’s family tree, the global toll of toxic waste and Erin Wayman on humanity’s first brush with extinction.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ERIN WAYMAN| BECOMING HUMAN
Eruption early in human prehistory may have been more whimper than bang
If Hollywood’s right, the apocalypse will be brutal. Aliens, nuclear war, zombies, plague, enslavement by supersmart robots — none of them are good endings…
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Vol. 3, No. 18
THIS WEEK: A viral fossil, the health dangers of hookahs, cannibalism in colonial America and Tom Siegfried on the limits of selfishness.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED| RANDOMNESS
Greed may breed financial fitness, but evolution allows unselfishness to survive
If greed is good, as Gordon Gekko proclaimed in the 1987 movie Wall Street, then economics ought to be a superlative science…
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Vol. 3, No. 17
THIS WEEK: Pulsating corals, consciousness in infancy, how bats see the world and Matt Crenson on what the long-dead can tell us about modern plagues.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: MATT CRENSON| RECONSTRUCTIONS
What ancient mummies have to tell us about the perils of modern life
Once you hit a certain age, visiting a doctor is basically a guilt trip. All that satisfying stuff you eat, drink or smoke is killing you, a white-coated overachiever tells you. You need to exercise and lose weight, or the grim reaper will be at your door long before you’re ready. And it will all be your fault…
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Vol. 3, No. 16
THIS WEEK: Bioengineered kidneys, the coelacanth genome, potentially wet exoplanets and Rachel Ehrenberg on how J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson ran afoul of shopper psychology.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG| CULTURE BEAKER
The psychology of J.C. Penney: Why shoppers like it when retailers play games with prices
Last year, J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson put an end to “fake prices,” the ones that customers see but rarely pay because of coupons and sales. Instead, the clothing retailer decided to sell items at cheaper everyday prices in an effort to “stop playing games” with consumers. By June, Johnson had conceded that this strategy wasn’t working. Penney brought back coupons in September; the return of clearance racks soon followed. But it may have been too late for Johnson; he got the boot on April 8 after a mere 17 months on the job . . .
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Vol. 3, No. 15
THIS WEEK: The killer ingredient in red meat, a slow-moving debate over tortoise taxonomy, the answer to a very sensitive question about male anatomy and Alexandra Witze with the skinny on sinkholes.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
Geologists develop weapons to combat that sinkhole feeling
What do five Porsches, several Kentucky thoroughbreds and a three-story building in Guatemala City have in common? They’ve all been swallowed by sinkholes . . .
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Vol. 3, No. 14
THIS WEEK: The cocaine-addicted brain, the latest on dark matter, what babies can say with a growl and Tom Siegfried on the intersection of junk DNA with flawed logic.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Reports of junk DNA’s ‘demise’ were based on junky logic and dubious definitions
Science is an oddly successful enterprise. On the whole, it provides an impressive guide to reality. From antibiotics and atomic bombs to laser beams and X-rays, science enables humans to forge powerful tools from nature’s secrets . . .
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Vol. 3, No. 13
THIS WEEK: A 3-D sound cloak, a truly unbearable heat wave, the imperfection of the mammalian ear and Erin Wayman on humankind’s legacy of destruction.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ERIN WAYMAN | BECOMING HUMAN
Humankind’s destructive streak may be older than the species itself
Some scientists have proposed designating a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, that would cover the period since humans became the predominant environmental force on the planet. But when would you have it begin? Some geologists argue that the Anthropocene began with the Industrial Revolution, when fossil fuel consumption started influencing climate. Others point back several thousand years earlier to the onset of agriculture, when humans cleared swaths of forest to make way for neat little rows of cultivated crops. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 12
THIS WEEK: EThe genes of the giant squid, a plague on impatiens, the best look yet at the cosmic microwave background and Julie Rehmeyer on what it takes to prove a mathematical conjecture.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: JULIE REHMEYER | MATH TREK
A theorem in limbo shows that QED is not the last word in a mathematical proof
When a top-tier mathematician announced in August that he had proved one of the greatest problems in mathematics, the claim was trumpeted in the New York Times, Nature, Science and the Boston Globe. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 11
THIS WEEK: The latest from Mars Curiosity, well-traveled Neandertals, what you reveal when you ‘like’ something on Facebook and Tom Siegfried on why time is a one-way street.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Explanations for time’s arrow keep marching on
Time after time, physicists have tried to explain time. Many claim to have succeeded. But they haven’t. Otherwise everybody would quit trying to explain it all over again. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 10
THIS WEEK: Arctic camels, sperm navigation, craters as cradles of life and Rachel Ehrenberg on the insidious effects of online nastiness.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
When trolls come out from under their bridges, it’s bad news for scientific discourse
Depending on your age, the word troll might evoke a nasty creature who lives under a bridge — or a nasty creature who posts inflammatory comments online. The former, found mostly in Scandinavian folktales, is typically a dim-witted beast, not inclined to help humans. The latter (judgment on wits aside) is also rarely considered helpful. But new research suggests a more nefarious role for these postmodern trolls: Their uncivil, rancorous remarks can influence how readers perceive science. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 9
THIS WEEK: Tadpoles see with transplanted eyes, a new SARS-like virus raises concerns, a supermassive black hole hitchhikes to a new galaxy, miniature machines assemble themselves on cue and Alexandra Witze on asteroid protection plans.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
When an asteroid heads for Earth, it’s time to reconsider those doomsday plans
Chicken Little is right. The sky is falling.
The million-plus people living in Chelyabinsk, Russia, got that message on February 15, when a space rock some 17 meters across detonated over their homes. People rushed to the windows in wonderment as a blaze of light arced through the sky; seconds later many of them got a face full of glass shards. It was the most damaging cosmic collision since 1908, when an even bigger asteroid chunk blew up over Siberia. (In an era before YouTube and dashboard cameras, it was weeks before tales trickled out of reindeer herders
being thrown from their tents by the blast.). . .
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Vol. 3, No. 8
THIS WEEK: An eye on the inner ear, snaring viruses with nanoparticles, how primates got their drink on and Tom Siegfried on building a Maxwell’s demon.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Real-life Maxwell’s demon adds fuel to debate about status of the second law
Fight Club had its First Rule (don’t talk about Fight Club). The Transporter enforces Rule Number 1 (never change the deal). And NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs observes Rule 1 (never mix the suspects together in the same room). . .
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Vol. 3, No. 7
THIS WEEK: Erasing memories with drugs, Heisenberg on a grand scale, detachable sex organs and Julie Rehmeyer on a streamlined proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: JULIE REHMEYER | MATH TREK
A mathematician puts Fermat’s Last
Theorem on an axiomatic diet
Fermat’s Last Theorem is so simple to state, but so hard to prove. Though the 350-year-old claim is a straightforward one about integers, the proof that University of Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles finally created for it nearly two decades ago required almost unimaginably complex theoretical machinery. The proof was a dazzling demonstration of that machinery’s value, but one aspect of it troubled mathematicians: It relied on stronger axioms than mathematics normally requires, and ones far more complex than are needed to state the problem. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 6
THIS WEEK: A lake under ice, moles smelling in stereo, a fearless woman’s Achilles’ heel and Tom Siegfried on physicists’ many interpretations of quantum theory.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Poll of quantum physicists shows agreement, disagreement and something in between
Science is not a democracy. Nature’s laws are not subject to the whims of popular vote. A scientific theory succeeds by providing logical explanations for puzzling phenomena and making correct predictions about the outcomes of new experiments. It doesn’t matter how many scientists believed in the theory beforehand (or even afterward, for that matter). . .
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Vol. 3, No. 5
THIS WEEK: Corals in crisis, wildlife’s feline menace, sleep problems in the military and Rachel Ehrenberg on predicting box office bounty.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
In Hollywood, buzz beats star power when it comes to predicting box office take
Movie studios love awards season. Winning one of the glittery statuettes that are annually bestowed upon those in the biz can provide a hefty box office boost. But if you are going to put money on which movies will sell the most tickets in the long run, accolades from critics and peers aren’t a very good crystal ball. When it comes to predicting box office success, it turns out that the little people really do matter. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 4
THIS WEEK: Dung beetle navigation, DNA data storage, deep-brain stimulation for autism and Laura Sanders on the quest for faster-acting antidepressants.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: LAURA SANDERS | FRAME OF MIND
A new generation of antidepressants could help patients feel better faster
People talk a lot about speeding up drug development. But for some problems, they should also focus on speeding up the drugs. For brain disorders like depression, the medicines prescribed by doctors can take weeks or months to kick in. (And even after the long wait, the number of people who experience complete turnarounds is surprisingly low.)…
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Vol. 3, No. 4
THIS WEEK: New insights into barnacle sex, the potential for life on exomoons, the frustrating hunt for depression genes and Tom Siegfried on the quantum roots of randomness.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Rules for computing classical probabilities might depend on quantum randomness
For all the deference to “laws” of nature that supposedly govern everything that happens, the truth is that randomness rules the world. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 2
THIS WEEK: Improved cancer detection, a pretend mission to Mars, earthquakes in unexpected places and Alexandra Witze on the lessons of the Italian earthquake verdict.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE| EARTH IN ACTION
Italian earthquake verdict exposes rifts between science and society
Sometimes a little shake-up is exactly what scientists need to make a major breakthrough. Other times it can send them to jail.
Six Italian researchers and one government official have each been sentenced to six years in prison for their role in communicating — or failing to communicate — seismic risks in L’Aquila, Italy. That beautiful medieval town was devastated by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in the wee hours of April 6, 2009. More than 300 people died; the aftershocks reverberated not only across Italy but also throughout the global network of seismologists. . .
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Vol. 3, No. 1
THIS WEEK: Squeezing quiets cancer cells, meteorite hunters strike gold, hot hitters give their teammates a boost and Julie Rehmeyer examines the math of competitive bidding.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: JULIE REHMEYER | MATH TREK
For new federal plan to buy medical supplies, devil is in the details
Medicare could waste billions of dollars, bankrupt small businesses and leave seniors without crucial medical equipment, some economists warn, with a new auction-based purchasing plan that ignores mathematical principles of competitive bidding. . . .
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Vol. 2, No. 47
THIS WEEK: SN Prime reviews the year in science with a compilation and analysis of the most fascinating stories of 2012. Also highlighted are reader favorites, debunked science, stunning images and the year’s weirdest stories.
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Vol. 2, No. 46
THIS WEEK: Curiosity gets a whiff of Martian soil, Voyager enters new territory, the Large Hadron Collider sees matter behaving strangely and Tom Siegfried explores the possibility that our reality is just someone else’s simulation.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Maybe there’s a way to find out
if reality is a computer simulation
In olden days, before the Star Trek holodeck and movies like TRON and The Matrix, philosophers used to wonder whether life was but a dream. Nowadays they’re more concerned that reality could be just a computer simulation. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 45
THIS WEEK: Melting ice sheets, superstrong artificial muscles, the universe before dark energy’s rise and Rachel Ehrenberg on how math won on Election Day.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
After nailing 2012 elections, number crunchers suggest pollsters are asking the wrong question
President Obama wasn’t the only winner in November’s election: Math also triumphed. At the forefront of the algorithmic charge was numbers nerd Nate Silver, who correctly predicted the presidential winner in all 50 states on his New York Times blog FiveThirtyEight.. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 44
THIS WEEK: Human ancestors’ early airborne weapons, doubt about drought models, a potentially habitable planet found hiding in data, the search for enzymes that can take the heat and Laura Sanders on pinpointing face recognition in the brain.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: LAURA SANDERS | FRAME OF MIND
Study gives a jolt to brain researchers seeking to understand face blindness
At the push of a button, Dr. Josef Parvizi’s face melted. When Parvizi turned on the juice to two electrodes in his patient’s brain, “you just turned into somebody else,” the patient told the doctor from the hospital bed. “Your face metamorphosed. Your nose got saggy and went to the left. You almost looked like somebody I’ve seen before, but somebody different. That was a trip.” …
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Vol. 2, No. 43
THIS WEEK: Corals call cleaning crew when algae attacks, an alternate proposal for an ancient flood, your brain on speed dating, a primer on hydraulic fracturing, and Tom Siegfried on how models work best when they’re efficient.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Physicists’ theories, biology’s brains work best when they’re models of efficiency
When scientists talk about computer models, they don’t mean little toy facsimiles of a PC or Mac. A computer model is a digital representation of some piece of reality. It’s a translation of matter and motion into math, so a computer can calculate how a process will unfold under various circumstances.. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 42
THIS WEEK: The bird family tree, cancer-causing viruses, a Mars rover’s acerbic alter ego and Alexandra Witze on the fate of southern sea ice.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
Poles apart, the Arctic and Antarctic exhibit very different records for sea ice
People might think they’re twins, but the North Pole and the South Pole are really more like
distant cousins who, at family reunions, can’t believe they are related. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 41
THIS WEEK: Lucy up a tree, aspirin’s colon cancer benefits, the birth of Saturn’s multifarious moons and Julie Rehmeyer on the lose-lose proposition of international climate negotiations.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: JULIE REHMEYER | MATH TREK
Game theory suggests current climate negotiations won’t avert catastrophe
Climate treaty negotiators might be wise to have a conversation with a game theorist.
So far, negotiators’ promises to reduce greenhouse gas production have been paltry and results paltrier, as both emissions and global temperatures have risen. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 40
THIS WEEK: A comparatively nearby exoplanet, the expansion of the human life span, teens’ remarkable capacity for self-control and Tom Siegfried on making time crystals.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
To build a clock that ticks forever, you need a spacetime crystal blueprint
Nothing lasts forever, although some things seem to. Speeches at political conventions, the NBA play-offs and those fight scenes in the Matrix movies just go on and on and on. Sometimes life itself seems like one never-ending wallpaper pattern, duplicated over and over again at regular intervals. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 39
THIS WEEK: Nobel prize coverage, cell death by magnet, a brainless organism that makes memories and Rachel Ehrenberg on the cosmology of the Twitterverse.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
Scientists embrace Twitter for spreading the word and hashing through new data
When NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity touched down on August 5, nerds of the Twitterverse went wild. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory team that sends out tweets on behalf of the rover (@MarsCuriosity) immediately posted the news: “I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL”. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 38
THIS WEEK: Curiosity sees signs that water once flowed on Mars, Gouldian finches need the right eye to find a mate, how legless lizards and snakes evolved and Laura Sanders on studying brains in the wild.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: LAURA SANDERS | FRAME OF MIND
To understand meetings of minds, scientists should study brains in the wild
Usually, scientific research papers appeal to their readers with results or ideas, not art. But as I was poking through some journals last week, an outlier caught my eye. Instead of the normal bland tables, bar graphs and trend lines, the first illustration in this paper looked more like a frat boy’s Facebook page the day after a rowdy throwdown…
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Vol. 2, No. 37
THIS WEEK: Neandertal arts and crafts, dissolvable electronics, a close look at a very big black hole and Alexandra Witze on the beginning of dinosaurs’ end.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
Bad days for dinosaurs began long before the last of them died
Sometimes a bad day doesn’t know when to stop. It turns into a bad week, then a bad month, and maybe even the worst year you’ve ever had . . .
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Vol. 2, No. 36
THIS WEEK: Ritalin and risk-taking, African prehistory documented in DNA, a more precise take on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and Matt Crenson on the fall of civilizations.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: MATT CRENSON | RECONSTRUCTIONS
What the Maya really have to tell us about the end of the world
In the wake of the third hottest U.S. summer on record, with the Arctic sea ice at its smallest extent on record and a drought driving food prices to all-time records, it might be a good time to consider what the Maya have to teach us about the end of the world. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 35
THIS WEEK: Virgin snakes give birth, Facebook gets out the vote, two probes near the solar system’s limit and Tom Siegfried confronts dragon kings.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Scientists seek mathematical insights for taming and explaining ‘dragon kings’
The Mother of All Dragon Kings sounds like a character from Game of Thrones.
But in fact, it’s a mix of wartime rhetoric and a technical scientific term. A “dragon king,” in the lingo of scientists who study complex systems, is an outlier. It’s an event, or effect, or activity, that’s literally off the scale — so big, so calamitous, that it doesn’t fit in the range of expected magnitudes. Huge earthquakes, sudden economic depressions, companies worth $600 billion are the dragon kings of the natural and socioeconomic worlds. In older times, prime dragon king examples included outsized political entities, like the Roman Empire, or epidemics like the Black Death. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 34
THIS WEEK: A record low for Arctic ice, a binary star system with twin planets, new theories from the Hadean on the origin of cells, and Rachel Ehrenberg on taking science funding to the people.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
Science needs a kick to take advantage of the generosity of crowds
Back in the days before electronic ignitions, “kick-starter” referred to an old-fashioned means of igniting an engine with a hearty thrust of your foot. Today the term usually alludes to a thoroughly modern means of igniting financial support for a project. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 32
THIS WEEK: Sick snakes, tainted tattoos, the secret of llama fertility and Laura Sanders on why it may be OK to covet your neighbor’s assets.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: LAURA SANDERS | FRAME OF MIND
Copycat mentality may be a hardwired way for animals to learn to avoid others’ mistakes
Human beings are highly social creatures. But sometimes we seem to be a little too worried about what our fellow humans are up to. Think of the girl who runs out and buys the same exact shirt you wore last week, or that guy who repeats the hilarious joke you just cracked, but louder. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 32
THIS WEEK: Neat wrinkles, a chameleon robot, the invention of mummification and Alexandra Witze on probing a giant volcano’s restless heart.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
When studying a monster volcano, poke softly with a sensitive stick
Sometimes the best thing you can do with a monster is to poke it with a stick. Gently, of course. Prod too hard, and he might roar back in your face. That’s the chance scientists are taking in Italy, where they are drilling right into the heart of a restive supervolcano to see what it might do… *Read the full column by downloading the free app and purchasing this issue, or if you are a print subscriber you can read the full column here on our website.
Vol. 2, No. 31
THIS WEEK: Curiosity reaches Mars, extreme heat becomes more normal, geneticists use DNA to trace the Jewish Diaspora and Matt Crenson considers a controversial theory about the peopling of the Americas.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: MATT CRENSON | RECONSTRUCTIONS
New research on Native American origins takes anthropologists down memory lane
In school we learn that science proceeds logically from one experiment to the next, leaving in its wake a complete and certain body of knowledge. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 30
THIS WEEK: Cancer stem cells, hints of an African sister species, the best places for infectious diseases to catch a flight and Rachel Ehrenberg on the so-called narcissism of Generation Me.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
There’s nothing special about thinking that kids think they’re extra special
“You are not special. You are not exceptional.”
Blunt words, delivered in June by English teacher David McCullough Jr. to the graduating class of Wellesley High School in Massachusetts. They quickly went viral. Lauded as an especially fitting message for today’s self-entitled “me generation,” McCullough’s speech garnered praise around the media world, from the Christian Science Monitor to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 29
THIS WEEK: Termite suicide bombers, a robotic jellyfish, what the Higgs hype missed and Laura Sanders on what the brain does when it’s not doing anything.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: LAURA SANDERS | FRAME OF MIND
fMRI’s birthday lesson: Don’t ignore weird things you don’t understand
For 20 years now, scientists have been spying on the brain. The technique they use, called functional MRI, has changed the face of brain science, illuminating aspects of the human mind at work without the need for brain surgery or radioactive tracers. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 28
THIS WEEK: Lab-dwelling cannibals, analyzing a single sperm’s DNA, prehistoric violence in the Middle East and Alexandra Witze on marking geologic time.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
Earth scientists think it’s time
to sync their geological clocks
For some scientists, measuring time is harder than clocking Olympic sprinters.
To date big events in Earth history, geologists need a clock that stretches back accurately far into the past. In fact, they do have two such clocks — one based on the steady radioactive decay of minerals, the other on the rhythmic swoops of Earth’s orbit…
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Vol. 2, No. 27
THIS WEEK: A moonier Pluto, a more maneuverable pterosaur, blaming bad weather on warming climate and Matt Crenson on what drives human inventiveness.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: MATT CRENSON | RECONSTRUCTIONS
Scientists can’t decide if shoulders of giants were broader or just better organized
The people who lived in Tasmania 8,000 years ago were pretty sophisticated, technologically speaking. They made bone tools, boomerangs, nets for catching a variety of prey and warm clothing to protect themselves from blustery weather. But when Europeans came upon that island, off Australia’s southern coast, just a few centuries ago, they found some of the most primitive hunter-gatherers in the world — subsisting without seaworthy vessels, sewn clothing or bone tools of any kind. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 26
THIS WEEK: The universe’s invisible web, investing tips from czarist Russia, finding youth in low-Earth orbit and Tom Siegfried on how the Higgs boson makes everything possible.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
With discovery of the Higgs, science can celebrate math’s power to probe nature
By now, all aficionados of physics news — and quite a few people who don’t know physics from phonics — have heard about the discovery of the Higgs boson. It’s the biggest news in the physics world ever to be tweeted. And it came after a long wait. For more than three decades, the Higgs has been physicists’ version of King Arthur’s Holy Grail, Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth, Captain Ahab’s Moby Dick. It’s been an obsession, a fixation, an addiction to an idea that almost every expert believed just had to be true. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 25
THIS WEEK: How tomatoes lost their flavor, some really ancient Chinese pottery, a rub-on contraceptive for men and Rachel Ehrenberg on why robbing banks is for suckers.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
Movie heists notwithstanding, when crime does pay, it’s not very much
Hollywood’s versions of heists are typically tales of glamour: A dream team, à la Ocean’s Eleven, meticulously plans and pulls off a multimillion-dollar caper. There are blueprints, elaborate alarm systems (circumvented by even more elaborate electronics), tunnels and false identities. The haul is enormous, permitting the criminals to abandon a life of crime. Well, I have some breaking news: In real life, bank heist stories are much more mundane. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 24
THIS WEEK: A chimp’s uncanny talent, the universe’s first stars, dairy products long past their sell-by date and Tom Siegfried on where time came from and where it’s going.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Bubble universes give new perspective to time’s origin and its arrow
Fans of T.S. Eliot are all aware that the world will end with a whimper. Fans of modern cosmology know that the world began with a bang, a big one. But the flow of time that transports the world from bang to whimper, from past to future, may itself neither begin nor end . . .
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Vol. 2, No. 23
THIS WEEK: Prehistoric moving pictures, ozone-destroying volcanoes, Alan Turing’s uncanny prescience and Alexandra Witze on the world’s biggest jigsaw puzzle.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: ALEXANDRA WITZE | EARTH IN ACTION
Geologists play with puzzles about past and future supercontinents
If you’ve ever tackled a jigsaw puzzle, you know how easy it is to lose some of the pieces and jam others into the wrong place. Now imagine that your jigsaw is the entire Earth, and your pieces fragments of continents. Lose a piece, and you’ve lost one of the planet’s major landmasses. Oops…
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Vol. 2, No. 22
THIS WEEK: Galaxies collide, giant bugs get wiped out, an accelerated schedule for supervolcanoes and Matt Crenson wonders why people fall for apocalyptic prophecies.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: MATT CRENSON | RECONSTRUCTIONS
Maya calendar savvy suggests apocalypse is farther in the future than December
For those of us who hate Christmas, it’s kind of comforting to hear that the world is going to end on December 21. If the jig truly is up, there’s no need to go through the tedious holiday rituals of shopping, making travel arrangements and festooning the boughs of doomed evergreens.
What a wonderful life that would be. But alas, the apocalypse is not coming on the third Friday in December. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 22
THIS WEEK: Long-term birth control works best, people are programmed to want what others have, why the human olfactory bulb is kind of boring and Laura Sanders finds food “addiction” a little hard to swallow.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: LAURA SANDERS | FRAME OF MIND
Scientists shouldn’t get hooked on notion that obesity reflects addiction to food
One of the most chilling newcomers on the addiction scene is dirt cheap and easy to score.
Known on the street as “Scream,” “Brain Freeze” and “Chunky Monkey,” this high is easy to ride — all it takes is $4 and a visit to your local grocer’s freezer section. You’ve probably encountered — and maybe even used — this latest menace yourself: ice cream. . .
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Vol. 2, No. 20
THIS WEEK: A timekeeper for the grim reaper, the genetic roots of schizophrenia, keeping an eye on Kilauea and Rachel Ehrenberg on the endurance of fame.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: RACHEL EHRENBERG | CULTURE BEAKER
Despite more time for celebrity news, duration of fame remains the same
Andy Warhol’s much-touted quip that in the future everyone will have 15 minutes of fame was surprisingly prescient, given that the year was 1968. The Internet was in its nascent stages and wouldn’t reach the masses until decades later. CNN, the original 24-hour news channel, didn’t exist. And the creators of YouTube weren’t even a twinkle in their respective parents’ eyes (members of the entrepreneurial trio were born in 1977, 1978 and 1979). But for all his foresight, Warhol got one thing wrong. According to a new study, the average duration of fame isn’t 15 minutes. It’s one week. . . .
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Vol. 2, No. 19
THIS WEEK: Archaeologists find an ancient Maya wall calendar, Antarctica’s ice approaches a tipping point, chimps display signs of culture and Tom Siegfried charts the frontiers of bioferroelectrophysics.
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COLUMN SNEAK PEEK: TOM SIEGFRIED | RANDOMNESS
Lessons from physics help reveal evidence for the body ferroelectric
Life is always defying the boundaries of biology, or at least of biology textbooks. You don’t have to look far to find instances where books from other fields become relevant. Flip open a physics book, say, and you might find some especially pertinent examples in the chapter on magnetism. . .
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Current issue
Issue contents
June 17, 2013
June 10, 2013
May 27 & June 3, 2013
May 20, 2013
May 13, 2013
May 6, 2013
April 29, 2013
April 22, 2013
April 15, 2013
April 8, 2013
April 1, 2013
March 25, 2013
March 18, 2013
March 11, 2013
March 4, 2013
February 25, 2013
February 18, 2013
February 11, 2013
February 4, 2013
January 28, 2013
January 21, 2013
January 14, 2013
December 31, 2012 & January 7, 2013
December 17 & 24, 2012
December 10, 2012
December 3, 2012
November 19 & 26, 2012
November 12, 2012
November 5, 2012
October 29, 2012
October 22, 2012
October 15, 2012
October 8, 2012
October 1, 2012
September 24, 2012
September 17, 2012
September 3 &10, 2012
August 27, 2012
August 20, 2012
August 13, 2012
August 6, 2012
July 30, 2012
July 23, 2012
July 16, 2012
July 9, 2012
July 2, 2012
June 25, 2012
June 18, 2012
June 11, 2012
May 28 & June 4, 2012
May 21, 2012
May 14, 2012
May 7, 2012
April 30, 2012
April 23, 2012
April 16, 2012
April 9, 2012
April 2, 2012
March 26, 2012
March 19, 2012
March 12, 2012
March 5, 2012
February 27, 2012
February 20, 2012
February 13, 2012
February 6, 2012
January 30, 2012
January 23, 2012
January 16, 2012
January 2 & 9, 2012
December 19 & 26, 2011
December 12, 2011
December 5, 2011
November 21 & 28, 2011
November 14, 2011
November 7, 2011
October 31, 2011
October 24, 2011
October 10 & 17, 2011
October 3, 2011
September 26, 2011
September 19, 2011
September 12, 2011
September 5, 2011
August 29, 2011
August 22, 2011
August 15, 2011
August 8, 2011
August 1, 2011
July 25, 2011
July 15, 2011
July 1, 2011
June 24, 2011
June 17, 2011
June 10, 2011
