Steven Spielberg wanted to make a credible alien movie with Disclosure Day Scientific American 2026-09-26 | Steven Spielberg wanted to make a credible alien movie with Disclosure Day
A Surprising Thing Happens When Two Black Holes Slam Together Scientific American 2023-06-01 | What is the "chirp"? And why is it important to astronomers? Some of the most violent cosmic collisions in the universe occur silently in the vacuum of space, but with the right instrumental ears, we can still hear it happen. Here's how.
Will the Chesapeake Become a Dead Zone? Scientific American 2023-05-03 | In the 45,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay, the country’s largest estuary, nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater treatment plants, and urban and agricultural run-off is continuously suffocating marine life. “What happens in the Chesapeake Bay is not only important to our residents, but it also impacts seafood industries, recreation and commercial anglers all along the Atlantic Coast,” says Allison Colden, a senior fisheries scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an independent conservation organization.Despite decades of clean up efforts, and evolving regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the bay remains in a critical state. To make matters worse, climate change is compounding the region’s problems. Increased rainfall, which flushes more nutrients into the bay, and warming water temperatures is making it harder to reverse the damage already done to the bay.
This Astoundingly Simple Ancient Technique Is Helping to Beat Back Drought Scientific American 2023-04-20 | Amid a warming world, these conservationists have brought back a very old and very low-tech drought-busting practice and they are getting results.This story created in partnership with @RETROREPORT. View more of their documentaries here: retroreport.org
Vera Rubin Lives on in Lives of the Women She Helped in Astronomy Scientific American 2023-03-31 | The "Mother of Dark Matter" was a force of nature—and a forceful advocate for other women who also wanted to dedicate their careers to the cosmos.
Unearthed (En Español) Scientific American 2023-03-29 | El cambio climático amenaza la supervivencia humana en este planeta y la disminución de las emisiones de dióxido de carbono (CO2) por sí sola no revertirá sus efectos potencialmente devastadores. Necesitamos sacar los gases de efecto invernadero existentes de la atmósfera y ponerlos en un lugar seguro. Pero, ¿dónde en la Tierra hay un buen lugar seguro para guardarlos?El cambio climático se produce cuando el CO2, extraído del interior de la Tierra en forma de hidrocarburos, se libera a la atmósfera terrestre. La solución más obvia es devolver parte de ese carbono a su lugar de origen. El único problema es que no tenemos que esperar cientos de millones de años para volver a formar la materia vegetal fosilizada que era originalmente.Tenemos que movernos más rápido. Y para hacer eso, debemos enfrentar el hecho de que el interior de la Tierra no es un basurero inerte. Está lleno de vida. Dondequiera que excavamos y por muy profundo que cavemos, encontramos organismos vivos microscópicos. Para enterrar nuestro CO2 de manera efectiva, tendremos que negociar con éxito con nuestros silenciosos vecinos de abajo. Y para hacer eso, tenemos que averiguar quiénes son y qué son capaces de hacer ahí abajo.
Unearthed: The Mysterious Microbes in the Earths Crust Could Help Us With The Climate Crisis Scientific American 2023-03-29 | Climate change is threatening human survival on this planet and decreasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions alone will not reverse its potentially devastating effects. We need to pull existing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and put them somewhere safe. But where on Earth is a good safe place to keep them? Climate change is caused when CO2, extracted from Earth’s interior in the form of hydrocarbons is released into Earth’s atmosphere. The most obvious solution is to put some of that carbon back from whence it came. The only problem is that we don’t have hundreds of millions of years to wait to re-form the fossilized plant matter that it originally was. We have to move faster. And to do that, we need to face the fact that the interior of Earth is not an inert dumping ground. It’s teeming with life. Wherever we dig and however deep we dig, we find microscopic living organisms. To bury our CO2 effectively, we’re going to have to negotiate successfully with our silent downstairs neighbors. And to do that, we’ve got to figure out who they are and what they’re capable of doing down there.
What if Pi was a song? What would it sound like? And would it help you memorize its digits? Scientific American 2023-03-14 | Devin Powell, a science writer and multimedia creator, wanted to figure out a way memorize as many digits of Pi as he could. So, he used a trick he learned from memory champions...but his associations where through song.
Some Scientists Are Racing to Save Parasites. Why? Scientific American 2023-03-13 | You’ve probably seen a “Save the Whales” T-shirt before. But have you ever seen a “Save the Parasites” one? A group of researchers thinks that maybe it is time to start making them.To most of us, that might seem like a hard sell. The word “parasite” conjures imagery of swarms of mosquitoes and guts tangled up with tapeworms, of parasite-borne scourges such as malaria or Lyme disease that infect humans and livestock. These types of parasites need to be controlled or eradicated but are just a small fraction of the total found in nature.The way parasitism works also doesn’t tend to engender sympathy. The “lifestyle” is all about living at the expense of another. Parasites are evolutionary cheaters. Can’t make it on your own? Just use another body as a shelter and food.But this view misses a truth that researchers have become increasingly aware of: wildlife parasites help keep ecosystems balanced.“Parasites are puppet masters—they’re this kind of silent force in ecosystems,” says Colin Carlson, a global change biologist at Georgetown University, who has worked to quantify global parasite biodiversity. “They might be the majority of biomass in some ecosystems. They might make up the majority of food web links. And we never think about them.”Every species on Earth has a corresponding parasite. (Some species have a number of them.) And many of these hangers-on have been with their hosts for much longer than humans have been around. Lemurs and their parasites, for instance, are thought to have evolved together for the past 60 million years.This means parasites can be incredibly sensitive to changes in the environment and might be able to indicate a healthy ecosystem or warn of changes in climate or habitat loss. So wildlife parasites need to be studied and be listed as endangered species when applicable, Carlson says.He points to a horsehair worm in the highlands of Japan whose ultimate host is trout. To reach the trout, the parasite must first hitch a ride in a cricket and take control of its mind to make it drown itself. “What I think is amazing is: it turns out that the trout is endangered, and the majority of their diet comes from these crickets,” Carlsonsays. “That parasite is basically single-handedly holding that ecosystem together just by changing the behavior of its host.”
These Researchers Used Artificial Intelligence to Design an Animal Robot That Has Never Existed Scientific American 2023-03-06 | Xenobots are living, swimming, self-powered robots less than a millimeter across, evolved by artificial intelligence and built out of frog stem cells—and they could open new medical frontiers.
This Particle Accelerator Makes A Substance That Hasnt Existed in 13 Billion Years: Quark Soup Scientific American 2023-02-22 | By using one of the most complicated and powerful machines on the planet, scientists have found a way to glimpse back to the very beginning of time itself.
Decoded: Can We Stop Aging? Scientific American 2023-02-01 | What really happens to our bodies when we age — and could we find a way to slow it down?
Did We Domesticate Plants or Did They Domesticate Us? The Answer Might Not be so Clear. Scientific American 2023-01-26 | Did humans domesticate plants, or did they domesticate us? Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük, a 9,000-year-old site in Turkey, offer lessons on how agriculture and other major innovations can yield unexpected long-term consequences for human society and the world around us.Produced by @ibiology @WonderCollaborative at the Science Communication Lab: sciencecommunicationlab.orgin partnership with Scientific American.FULL CREDITS:Director:Regina Sobel Cinematographer:Derek ReichEditor:Elizabeth Brooke Original Music:Mark BaechleMarcus Bagala Graphics:Chris GeorgeMaggie HubbardAssociate Producer:Shelley Elizabeth CarterField Producer: Meredith DeSalazarInterview by: Adam BoltExecutive Producers:Shannon BehrmanSarah GoodwinElliot Kirschner—This video was made with support from the National Science Foundation (MCB-2122350.) Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Additional Materials:Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo Jason Quinlan, Çatalhöyük Research Project Vintage at Cherchell Roman mosaic“Threshing Team at Prairie, Victoria, Australia with Traction Engine.” Original image by William Henry Thomas of Prairie, Victoria, Australia, father of Wally Thomas. Reproduced image by Bernie Crumpler. East Loddon Historical Society Inc, Thomas Family of Prairie Collection Agricultural Scenes from the Tomb of Nakht; Encyclopædia Britannica Irish Examiner Archive The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, Winslow Homer; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967 Harvest Scenes, Tomb of Menna, original c. 1400–1352 B.C., Charles K. Wilkinson; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1930 Sennedjem and Iineferti in the Fields of Iaru, A.D. 1922, original c. 1295–1213 B.C., Charles K. Wilkinson; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1930Sennedjem and Ti harvesting papyrus, original c. 13th-11th centuries B.C.; The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt Persian Wheels all over Indus, R. Jalbhoy, Karachi. c. 1905; Paperjewels.org avgeeks, DogPhonics, retrofootage, VelvetMemories / Pond5 Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1558, Pieter Bruegel; Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Babur supervising the laying out of the Garden of Fidelity, c. 1590, Bishndas and Nanha; Victoria & Albert Museum, LondonAgriculture: raking rice paddies in China with an ox-drawn plough. Engraving by J. June after A. Heckel; Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark
Where Did All the Gold in the Universe Come From? Scientific American 2023-01-05 | For a long time, no one knew how "heavy metals" formed--or showed up on Earth. Now, some new evidence finally points the way to an answer.
Meet the Medical Student Challenging Racial Bias with TikTok Scientific American 2022-12-23 | Joel Bervell, a medical influencer, is challenging racism in health care, one TikTok at a time.
Prioritizing Pleasure | A Question of Sex, Episode 5 Scientific American 2022-12-15 | The vulva has long been ignored in anatomical study. But scientists and doctors are making strides in mapping its pleasure center, the clitoris, and improving sensation for survivors of genital cutting.
An Archeological Dig in Michigan Turns Up Some Surprising Artifacts Scientific American 2022-12-08 | Archeologists have found a small mountain of artifacts buried in a farm field that show the presence of some of the first peoples to inhabit the Americas.
The Power of Periods | A Question of Sex, Episode 4 Scientific American 2022-12-01 | Science knows shockingly little about menstrual health. But now, endometriosis patients are changing that. It’s estimated that about one in 10 people who menstruate suffer from endometriosis, which occurs when tissue that grows in the uterus migrates to other parts of the body, becomes inflamed in response to cyclical hormonal changes and forms painful lesions.One recent study put the cost per patient in the year following diagnosis at more than $15,000, and that doesn’t even account for school missed and work opportunities delayed. There is still no cure.In the fourth episode of Scientific American’s documentary series A Question of Sex, we meet a data scientist and endometriosis patient who is working to fill those stark gaps.
What is a Carbon Cage, and why are you stuck in one right now? Scientific American 2022-11-18 | Our current carbon-heavy economic system creates bars around us that stop effective climate change action. Here's why.
Sea lamprey are nightmare fuel. These researchers are making coffee out of them... Scientific American 2022-10-31 | Happy Halloween...Why on Earth would you try to "brew" anything using these invasive, parasitic fish that slurp the blood and guts out of other fish? To try to trick them into a trap, of course.
A Black mother’s loss explains broken US healthcare | A Question of Sex, Episode 3 Scientific American 2022-10-20 | The U.S. has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates among developed countries. Researchers from North Carolina to the West Coast are working with parents to like Vu-An Foster to understand why.
Watch This Drone Collect Extremely Rare Plants in Crazy Dangerous Locations Scientific American 2022-10-12 | It's called the Mamba, and researchers are using it--attached to another drone--to fly into the knife's-edge ridges of Kauai to try to save plant species in danger of vanishing from the earth.
This Indigenous Scientist Helped Save Lives as Covid Devastated the Navajo Nation Scientific American 2022-10-10 | Crystal Lee grew up the granddaughter of Navajo medicine men. As Covid wreaked havoc on her community, she decided to act.
Detroit Has a Large Population of Ring-Necked Pheasants, and They Are Striking Scientific American 2022-10-06 | The Motor City is, perhaps, the only large city in the country with groups of the beautiful, non-native fowl running around its fields and lots.
Your Poop is Being Watched and Thats a Good Thing...Because Pandemics Scientific American 2022-09-28 | These days we are increasingly under all kinds of surveillance, but a relatively new type of snooping--let's call it poop snooping--could help us all react more quickly to new coronavirus variants or other future pandemics. All you have to do to contribute to the data...is flush.
These researchers are using drones and machine learning to detect land mines and save lives Scientific American 2022-09-07 | In a field in Oklahoma, researchers are using new technology to spot deadly munitions built to maim and kill.
13,000 Crabs Crawl into a Museum Scientific American 2022-08-31 | The American Museum of Natural History recently received the life’s work of a professor in Wisconsin—1,274 jars of crabs collected over decades from around the world.
How To Improve Indoor Air Quality Scientific American 2022-08-29 | Why do we pay attention to the quality of our drinking water, but not to our indoor air? Scientific American's Senior Health Editor, Tanya Lewis, explains how and why this matters.
Medicine’s Fixation on the Sex Binary Harms Intersex People | A Question of Sex, Episode 2 Scientific American 2022-08-24 | “Normalizing” infants’ and children’s genital appearance to match a sex assigned in early age isn’t medically necessary and can negatively impact quality of life.
Bird Migration and Song: SciAm LIVE Scientific American 2022-08-23 | Every year migratory birds that breed in the Northern Hemisphere wing their way up from their wintering grounds to find food and nesting spots. They also sing to attract mates and mark their territories. Scientific American presents a conversation about the surprising new science of how birds navigate long-haul migrations and what they listen for in songs. Physical chemist Peter Hore of the University of Oxford will discuss how birds use quantum effects to chart their course, and cognitive neuroscientist Adam Fishbein of the University of California, San Diego, will explain what birds pay attention to in birdsong (it’s not what you think).Moderator: Kate Wong is a senior editor at Scientific American. She has been writing and editing stories about the evolution of humans and other organisms for the magazine since 1997. Recently she has become utterly obsessed with birds.Panelists:- Peter Hore is a chemist at the University of Oxford. He works on the biophysical chemistry of electron and nuclear spins and their effects on processes such as the mechanisms of animal magnetoreception.- Adam Fishbein is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego. He studies the cognitive and neural bases of animal social interactions.
Has the Black Hole Information Paradox Finally Been Solved? Scientific American 2022-08-16 | Black Holes. Wormholes and Entanglement. Einstein. Mysterious islands. And new science that sees how the inside of a black hole is secretly on the outside of a black hole. For even more on how theoretical physicists are trying to solve a decades-old paradox in the field, read: scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-inside-of-a-black-hole-is-secretly-on-the-outside
Dive into a vanishing, invisible forest to see what climate has changed Scientific American 2022-07-17 | Our underwater forests are largely unobserved, but now they are vanishing. To understand why, scientists dive underwater and look down from space--and their research reveals a complex system at risk of collapse.
Lose yourself in the beauty of every new image from the James Webb Space Telescope Scientific American 2022-07-12 | The galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 reveals thousands of galaxies. The interacting galaxies of Stephan’s Quintetis constructed from almost 1,000 separate images. The spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-96b reveals the presence of water vapor as well as clouds and hazes in the atmosphere. The star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula looks like rugged mountains on a moonlit evening. Drink in all that cosmic beauty.
The James Webb Space Telescope just revealed our universe anew the view is absolutely stunning Scientific American 2022-07-11 | Decades of work, $10 billion in spending and nearly 14 billion years of cosmic history have brought us to this moment: the first science from the largest and most powerful observatory ever built.
Well Soon See Back to the Beginning of Time. James Webb Space Telescopes Big Reveal is Hours Away. Scientific American 2022-07-11 | Decades of work, $10 billion in spending and nearly 14 billion years of cosmic history have brought us to this moment. The first science from the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful observatory ever built. What questions will it answer? What new mysteries will discover? What will this new eye on the cosmos reveal?The telescope's first science images will be out VERY soon. Here's a quick look at what you can expect when they drop.For complete cover of the Webb, hit up: http://sciam.com/jwst
Roe v. Wade been overturned. Heres how your phone could spy on you if you try to get an abortion. Scientific American 2022-06-24 | From figuring out how often you go to the bathroom to potentially being used to prosecute you, your trusty smartphone might not be so trusty in a post-Roe world.
In Utah, teens are teaching themselves about consent Scientific American 2022-06-13 | Utah kept them from learning about consent--Utah schools are literally not allowed to use the word. Faced with that information gap, a group of teens found a place to have 'The Talk' together. Now, they are training to become sex educators so that they can teach their peers what they don't learn in the classroom.
The Weight of Stigma: Heavier Patients Confront the Burden of Bias Scientific American 2022-05-19 | Melissa Krechmer, a social worker in Philadelphia, grew tired of hearing the same refrain from each of her doctors. “I’d go to my allergist, and they would [say], ‘You need to take your Zyrtec, but you also need to lose weight,’” Krechmer says. “It’d be every time, no matter what type of visit.” This went on for years, even as her repeated attempts to lose weight only led her to disordered eating. It made Krechmer stop seeking care altogether. Krechmer’s story is not uncommon. Here's why.
The Mysteries of X and Y | A Question of Sex, Episode 1 Scientific American 2022-05-16 | The X and Y chromosomes are the biggest genetic difference in our species. Until now, medicine has been mostly ignoring their influence. Why?
COSMIC SELFIE: The Black Hole in the middle of our galaxy looks like this... Scientific American 2022-05-12 | It took more than 300 researchers and 8 telescopes to capture an image of our galaxy's black hole.
How Junk Science is Being Used Against Trans Kids Scientific American 2022-04-08 | This researcher has been studying the history of Trans kids for years. Here’s what you need to know.
Artificial Intelligence is Helping Save This Small Town From its Toxic Nightmare Scientific American 2022-03-08 | Benton Harbor needs to exhume thousands of corroded water service lines, and a machine learning algorithm is helping to figure out where to dig first.
This is how COVID-19 changed science...and the world Scientific American 2022-02-17 | We've all lived through the pandemic, but these scientific experts lived it--and fought nearly every day over the last two years to understand the virus, predict its spread, decode its dangers and fight it on the front lines of care. They know this virus inside and out--and some of their most surprising discoveries over the last two years relate not to how SARS CoV-2 covered the globe, but how humanity dealt with that fact...or didn't. Those hard-fought insights give Amesh Adalja, Rupali Limaye, Jeffrey Shaman and Brian Wahl special insight into what direction the global pandemic might head in next.
Louisianas $2-Billion Gamble: Flood the Land to Save the Coast Scientific American 2022-01-27 | After Hurricane Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast in August 2021, it took more than 100 lives and cost billions of dollars in damage. To some here, the storm’s coming was just one more justification for a desperate measure to preserve the state’s coast by intentionally flooding it parts of the state.“I don't mean to be alarmist about it, but anybody who’s spent any time along our coast, whether you’re fishing, hunting or working, you’ve seen the changes to our coast. We know it's going away,” says Bren Haase, executive director of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). “I don't think we can be successful without using the tools and the resources in the Mississippi River to help restore our coast.”This project was partially supported by generous grants from Economic Hardship Reporting Project, the Pulitzer Center, the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program and the National Association of Science Writers.economichardship.orgpulitzercenter.orghttps://ksj.mit.edu/nasw.orgPlease visit our website to discover the latest advances in science and technology: http://bit.ly/30Z4ZpZDiscover world-changing science with a subscription to Scientific American. Learn more: http://bit.ly/2RtR1cs
What is Scientific American? Scientific American 2022-01-26 | Every story is a science story.Please visit our website to discover the latest advances in science and technology: http://bit.ly/30Z4ZpZDiscover world-changing science with a subscription to Scientific American. Learn more: http://bit.ly/2RtR1cs
Catalytic Converters are getting stolen all across the country. Heres why. Scientific American 2021-12-20 | Why is rhodium one of the most expensive metals on the planet? And what does that have to do with your car's catalytic converter getting jacked? We explain.
This is what a giant Sequoia grove ravaged by wildfire looks like Scientific American 2021-12-15 | On a dead still November morning in the Sierra Nevada, two researchers walk through a graveyard of giants. Below their feet: a layer of ash and coal. Above their heads: a charnel house of endangered trees.This is Alder Creek Grove, a once idyllic environment for a majestic and massive specimen: the giant sequoia. It is now a blackened monument to a massive wildfire—and humankind’s far-reaching impact on the environment. But these two researchers have come to do more than pay their respects.Linnea Hardlund and Alexis Bernal, both of the University of California, Berkeley, are studying the effects of record-breaking fires such as the one that destroyed large swaths of Alder Creek Grove in the hopes that their findings will inform forest management that might preserve giant sequoias for future generations.So far, those findings are grim: mortality is near 100 percent where the wildfires burned most intensely. Of the mighty trees that stood watch for thousands of years, only charred skeletons remain.About a century of aggressive fire suppression and a warming, drier climate have created a perfect environment for unprecedented fire. On August 19, 2020, it came to the Giant Sequoia National Monument. The SQF Complex was two fires—the Castle and Shotgun fires—that burned for more than four months, affecting nearly 175,000 acres. And a preliminary report on the Castle Fire estimated that 10 to 14 percent of all living giant sequoias were destroyed.Hardlund, who is also at the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, and Bernal fear that, without scientifically informed intervention, such fires will continue to return to the Sierra Nevada—leaving the once proud guardians of the forest a memory and another casualty of our ecological failure.
Decoded: The Cloud has you. Do you know what it is? Scientific American 2021-12-01 | It governs a lot of your digital life these days, but the story of where it first materialized is likely deeper than you know.
The Complex Chemistry of Edible Goo Scientific American 2021-11-25 | Jell-O, salad dressings, puddings, jams and jellies, marshmallows, tofu, cream cheese, low-fat hot dogs: they all have it. And in fact, without it, they would not look or taste like they do.It alters the solid-state physics of these foods. It is a gelling agent.
