Posts

Join us for a live chat today (Monday, September 9) at 1 pm EDT with renowned animal scientist and autism expert Temple Grandin and science writer Richard Panek. They will discuss their latest book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum." SA blogger Joanne Manaster and her co-host Jeff Shaumeyer will lead the discussion as part of another collaborative Scientific American/Read Science! episode. Viewers may join in at this Google + event link or on Scientific American’s YouTube channel....

California’s landmark cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions just got bigger. Effective Jan. 1 it expanded to wrap in gasoline and diesel, a move oil companies have warned would trigger higher pump prices. Fuel distributors now must buy and submit permits covering greenhouse gas pollution tied to the fuels they sell. For the entire Golden State, that means 17 million gallons annually. Oil-related businesses and their allies for the past year sought to stop the move, but failed to persuade the Legislature or Gov....

Barely a year ago few people outside of a small network of scientists and companies had heard of mRNA vaccines. Today millions are pinning their hopes on these genetics-based immunizations, which have taken center stage in the fight against COVID. But deficiencies in needed supplies and materials for making the vaccines could lead to widespread shortages, some scientists say. The first doses of mRNA COVID vaccines began arriving at hospitals in the U....

When the summer sea ice goes, the Arctic will lose the ivory gull, Pacific walrus, ringed seal, hooded seal, narwhal and polar bear—all animals that rely on the ice for foraging, reproduction or as refuge from predators. And the sea ice is going, faster and faster: In the past 30 years, minimum sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has declined by 45,000 square kilometers annually*—an area twice the size of New Jersey is lost each year....

The kilogram is a 127-year-old relic. It is the last remaining standard of measurement in the International System of Units that is still based on a physical object—a single, golf ball–sized cylinder of platinum and iridium that sits in a vault just outside Paris. It is kept under lock and key—and secured underneath three vacuum-sealed, glass bell jars—in a temperature-controlled room in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. The slightest amount of dust, moisture or oil from fingerprints could alter the mass of the cylinder....

In 1925 British geneticist and statistician Ronald Fisher published a book called Statistical Methods for Research Workers. The title doesn’t scream “best seller,” but the book was a huge success and established Fisher as the father of modern statistics. In it, he tackles the problem of how researchers can apply statistical tests to numerical data to draw conclusions about what they have found and determine whether it is worth pursuing. He references a statistical test that summarizes the compatibility of data with a proposed model and produces a p value....

BOULDER, Colo. – Turns out climate policy has some tipping points. Failure to set and meet strict targets for greenhouse gas emissions cuts over the next 40 years could put long-term goals – such as limiting planetary warming to 2ºC by 2100 – permanently out of reach. That’s the conclusion of one of the first analyses to explore the relationships among energy use, mid-century targets and long-term policy options, published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

Some species play an outsize role in the environment they inhabit. Beavers build dams that create ponds where fish thrive. Otters in kelp forests eat enough sea urchins so that the kelp can grow without being gobbled up first. These so-called keystone species hold their ecosystem together. But what if ecosystems not only hinge on a single species but can be made or broken by a single gene? In a study published on Thursday in Science, researchers have demonstrated the existence of what theycall a “keystone gene....

The recently released 2020 Democratic Party platform contains a lot of policies that will excite scientists and environmentalists, including an aggressive agenda to fight climate change, the return of science-based decision making to the EPA, and environmental justice. There’s one game-changing passage, however, that’s received shockingly little notice outside of a small circle of experts—who are no less than ecstatic to see it mentioned at this level. Indeed, the inclusion of a statement like this in a national party platform and a presidential campaign promise represents the largest shift in United States science-based biodiversity conservation policy since the Endangered Species Act....

When it comes to attraction, the allure can begin even before she sets eyes on you. There seems to be something about the way you—her dinner—smells from afar that makes you a desired target. While you are chatting with friends or overseeing the barbecue, that mosquito will go on the hunt and make you her next blood meal. But what makes you so attractive to tiny ankle biters? This month a group of British researchers is launching a new investigation into the role of human genetics in this process....

Public health officials on Thursday said they had detected a bizarre cluster of cases in which patients in Massachusetts developed amnesia over the past few years — a highly unusual syndrome that could be connected to opioid use. The officials have identified only 14 cases so far. But officials said it’s possible that clinicians have simply missed other cases. The patients were all relatively young — they ranged in age from 19 to 52....

Air pollution costs the world approximately $5 trillion a year, or about 7 percent of global GDP, according to the World Bank. This cost is measured in a range of metrics, including lives lost and declines in health and productivity. Such pollution can be seen, felt, smelled, and even tasted. It stings and blurs the eyes, blackens the lungs, and shortens the breath. Even in the United States, about 142 million Americans still reside in counties with dangerously polluted air....

The seven-page letter, written to a friend on 21 December 1613 and signed “G.G.”, provides the strongest evidence yet that, at the start of his battle with the religious authorities, Galileo actively engaged in damage control and tried to spread a toned-down version of his claims. Many copies of the letter were made, and two differing versions exist — one that was sent to the Inquisition in Rome and another with less inflammatory language....

SAN DIEGO—Eight times a year a funeral director sets off by boat from Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base carrying about two dozen plastic bags filled with unusual human remains. The powder he pours overboard is from corpses that have been “cremated”—not by fire, but by liquid. That’s how the University of California, Los Angeles, disposes of bodies donated to science: by dissolving the flesh off their bones. The bones are then ground to dust and scattered into the sea two miles offshore, forming white rings that slowly float away into the Pacific Ocean....

Young frogs exposed to flame retardants have weakened immune systems, which could leave them more susceptible to diseases that are ravaging amphibians worldwide. A new laboratory experiment is the first to link flame retardants to immune system problems in frogs, and adds to evidence that pollutants may contribute to global declines of their populations. Tadpoles of northern leopard frogs were exposed to polybrominated diphenyl ethers in their food from the time they could swim until they turned into frogs....

Internet users have a variety of format options in which to store their movies, and biologists have now joined the party. Researchers have used the microbial immune system CRISPR–Cas to encode a movie into the genome of the bacterium Escherichia coli. The technical achievement, reported on July 12 in Nature, is a step towards creating cellular recording systems that are capable of encoding a series of events, says Seth Shipman, a synthetic biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts....

The mountain pine beetle infestation that has ravaged swaths of Western forests is slowing down for the second year in a row, the Forest Service said yesterday. The massive area of public forestland – about 750 million acres – with trees killed by the mountain pine beetle decreased by 3 million acres between 2010 and 2011, according to a report from the Forest Service. Northern Idaho saw a decrease of nearly 80 percent in beetle-damaged lands from last year....

Scientific American presents Tech Talker by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. What is net neutrality? The term net neutrality or internet neutrality has come up in the news recently and it has been causing a lot of controversy and confusion. In this week’s episode I’m going to set the record straight! If you’ve never heard of net neutrality before, fear not, it’s a really simple concept....

On a large pier jutting into the East River in south Brooklyn, New York City is putting the finishing touches on a massive recycling plant, lined with state-of-the-art technology and built of recycled steel. When it opens this summer, it will be North America’s largest “comingled” plant, which means it can handle everything from metal filing cabinets to plastic yogurt containers. At an estimated cost of $180 million, the plant is the Big Apple’s bet that it can not only improve its recycling rate but leapfrog other U....

By Declan ButlerA chemist–and social entrepreneur–in Australia is launching an open-source research project to develop a more potent form of a front-line drug against the debilitating neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis.Matthew Todd of the University of Sydney hopes to persuade research chemists across the world to share laboratory time and expertise in a collaborative effort to find a cheap and efficient synthesis of the drug praziquantel. All results will be published in almost real time on the project’s Web site–free of intellectual property restrictions–and later in journals, with substantial contributors becoming authors on any resulting papers....