One of the pleasures of Scientific American , I’ve always thought, is that it offers armchair travelers a vicarious expedition to the exciting worlds uncovered through science. I reflected on that fact recently as I sat on the tarmac, my flight 23rd in line for takeoff at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. I was reading over this issue’s articles and again became absorbed by our cover story, “ The First Americans ,” by Heather Pringle.
Read More »Category Archives: Personal Development News
Feed SubscriptionGravestone Project
Citizen scientists map the location of graveyards around the globe as well as the impact of air pollution on marble gravestones [More]
Read More »What Day Is Doomsday? How to Mentally Calculate the Day of the Week for Any Date
Every now and then a prominent religious zealot proclaims that the end is nigh. Harold Camping is the most recent example of such a doomsayer.
Read More »Vacuum Tube: Kids under 2 Should Not Watch Television
Every parent needs a break from time to time--a few minutes to prepare dinner, do the laundry or quickly check e-mail. That's when the television suddenly becomes the best invention ever--an instant free babysitter that enthralls even the youngest infants and might, fingers crossed, even teach them a thing or two
Read More »Declining Energy Quality and Economic Recession
According to many, downturns in the U.S. and European markets are primarily the result of unsustainable behaviors in the financial industry.
Read More »The Pill and Relationship Satisfaction, aka the power of interpretation
I sometimes think I could write an entirely different blog, devoted entirely to oral contraceptives. I don’t know that it would make any difference, but there is just SO much misinformation out there
Read More »U.S. study Suggests Pricing Carbon from Ground to Consumer
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To measure a country's greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels, it makes sense to consider the whole carbon supply chain, from oil well or coal mine to a consumer's shelf, scientists reported on Monday.
Read More »Dead German Satellite Will Fall to Earth This Week
A defunct German satellite is expected to plunge to Earth this week, but exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery. The massive
Read More »Did Saturn’s Moon Iapetus Once Have Its Own Moon?
Could a planet have a moon that itself had a smaller moon? A former subsatellite would help explain some of the mysteries of Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons
Read More »Learning the Look of Love: That Sly "Come Hither" Stare
Series Intro While it might not be witchcraft, the formula for `love at first sight' remains a mystery.
Read More »Tell Us More Telomeres: Anecdotes from a Nobel Prize Winner
The little tips of chromosomes get shorter every time a cell divides, and this shortening is a mark of cellular aging. If they get short enough, the cell dies or stops dividing
Read More »What Woody Woodpecker Can Teach Us About Football
It’s football season, which means marching bands, cheerleaders, doing the wave, and crowds going wild when their favorite team scores — and also more than a few bone-crunching collisions between players, a substantial fraction of which will result in injury. One of the most common foot-ball related injuries
Read More »New Finnish Reactor Town Counts Blessings, Fears
By Terhi Kinnunen PYHAJOKI, Finland (Reuters) - Matti Pahkala braces from the chilly winds blowing from the Gulf of Bothnia as he surveys a map of the Hanhikivi peninsula in northern Finland, an area he first visited as a child.
Read More »New Zealand Team Pumps Oil from Stricken Ship
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Salvage teams pumped oil on Monday from a stricken container ship off the New Zealand coast, ahead of bad weather which could split the vessel into two and spew more oil onto beaches. The Liberian-flagged Rena has been stuck for 12 days on a reef 14 miles off Tauranga on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, having already spilled about 350 tonnes of toxic fuel and some of its hundreds of containers into the sea
Read More »Renewable "Gold Rush" Powers Germany’s North Shore
By Erik Kirschbaum ROSTOCK, Germany (Reuters) - Renewable energy has created a "gold rush" atmosphere in Germany's depressed north-east, giving the country's poorhouse good jobs and great promise. [More]
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