Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

In my Scientific American column this month, I wrote about the dawn of augmented-reality software: phone apps that overlay informational graphics on a live video view of the world. As you hold the phone in front of you, these apps can show you what crimes were committed near the spot where you’re standing, which subway lines are under your feet, what apartments are for sale in the building in front of you, and so on.

Everybody’s amazed by touch-screen phones. They’re so thin, so powerful, so beautiful! [More]

It seems obvious to me that I have free will . When I have just made a decision, say, to go to a concert, I feel that I could have chosen to do something else. Yet many philosophers say this instinct is wrong

It’s hard to feel a sense of urgency about climate change--it feels so slow. Well, try telling that to the critters dealing with it. Because new data suggest that the climate will change more than 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt

DURBAN, South Africa--By 2020, human activity could produce some 55 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, up from roughly 36 billion metric tons per year currently. All the accumulating gas is enough to raise the global average temperatures by more than 3 degrees Celsius by century's end--more than triple the amount of warming that has already occurred. Emission reductions pledged under the Cancun Agreements , which cover some 85 percent of all national greenhouse gas emissions in the world, are meant to slow that warming.

In the struggle against widespread obesity that begins in early childhood , new research indicates that schools may be the best place to start a solution. [More]

By Ed Yong of Nature magazine It is not every day that you are separated from your body and then stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife. But such experiences are routine in the lab of Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who uses illusions to probe, stretch and displace people's sense of self.

In a year that saw a few highly proclaimed gadget introductions (the Amazon Kindle Fire , in particular) and some updates to high-profile staples such as Apple's iPhone and iPad , Scientific American takes a look at 10 gizmos that, if they did not land on your radar screen in 2011, deserve a look in the coming year. [More]

SAN FRANCISCO A mantra that has driven global negotiations on carbon dioxide emissions for years has been that policy-makers must prevent warming of more than two degrees Celsius to prevent apocalyptic climate outcomes. And, two degrees has been a point of no return, a limit directly or indirectly agreed to by negotiators at international climate talks. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, whose data since the 1980s has been central to setting that benchmark, said today that two degrees is too much.

You probably don’t often encounter [rattlesnake sound]. But snakebites are still a big concern for much of the world’s population.

In the quest to cure cancer, many researchers have started looking beyond toxic chemicals and harsh radiation and instead are trying to harness the body's immune system. [More]

SAN FRANCISCO - To get a glimpse of the future , look to East Africa today. [More]

By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine Human embryonic stem cells that are potentially pure enough to be used in therapies have been deposited into the UK Stem Cell Bank, and will soon be available across Europe.

Help researchers better understand influenza, the common cold and stomach flu [More]

“Three seconds to shoot. It’s Reggie! And it’s Indiana by eight!” Reggie Miller, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant