Trust is so frequently lost and broken that you’d think some insurance company would have made billions off it by now. But trust can’t be guaranteed. And once it’s gone, especially in a relationship, it takes lots of time and effort to rebuild. Listener Kate wrote in and asked how to rebuild trust in a relationship, but specified that broken trust goes beyond cheating. She’s right: there are many ways partners betray our trust besides an affair....
Ryan Duncan froze. He had just performed a new experiment examining common graphite—the stuff of pencil lead—but the results seemed physically impossible: Heat, which typically disperses slowly, had traveled through the graphite at the speed of sound. That is like placing a pot of water on a hot stove and instead of counting down the long minutes until that water starts to simmer, watching it boil almost instantaneously. It is no wonder that Duncan, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could not quite believe his eyes....
Human consciousness remains one of the biggest puzzles in science. Indeed, we have made moderate progress on how to measure it but less on how it arises in the first place. And what gives rise to our sense of self? In February we published a special collector’s edition exploring these mysteries and more. This issue’s cover story, by researcher Robert Martone, is a fascinating look at new discoveries on a region of the brain that helps us create a mental picture of our present and future identities (see “How Our Brain Preserves Our Sense of Self”)....
Fetal exposure to man-made chemicals found in oral contraceptives and some food containers can cause male mice to develop deformities in their prostate and bladder, a new study has found. The results indicate that the cellular changes could predispose the prostate to disease in adulthood. Barry G. Timms of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine and his colleagues studied the effects of very low doses of so-called estrogenic chemicals....
Hailed as a miracle in the 1950s, the potent bug killer DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) promised freedom from malaria, typhus and other insect-borne diseases. Manufacturers promoted it as a “benefactor of all humanity” in advertisements that declared, “DDT Is Good for Me!” Americans sprayed more than 1.35 billion tons of the insecticide—nearly 7.5 pounds per person—on crops, lawns and pets and in their homes before biologist Rachel Carson and others sounded the alarm about its impacts on humans and wildlife....
By Declan Butler"I’m a little shaken. They are throwing Molotov cocktails towards the museum." Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who has spent the past 12 years working in Egypt, was speaking yesterday as the Al Jazeera TV news network showed live footage of running street battles around the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square in Cairo. “We are all nervous and scared, first and foremost for the people, but now the museum, a symbol of Egypt’s vast cultural heritage and treasures, is being threatened by Mubarak’s own people,” she said....
Exposure to estrogen puts fish at greater risk of disease and premature death, according to a new federal study. The U.S. Geological Survey study showed that estrogen exposure reduces a fish’s ability to produce proteins that help it ward off disease and pointed to a possible link between the occurrence of intersex fish and recent fish kills in the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. The report, published in the current issue of Fish & Shellfish Immunology, adds to a growing body of research pointing to problems with estrogen in the nation’s waterways....
Soon after the news broke that North Korea claimed to have conducted a nuclear test, experts realized that the blast had been much smaller than is usual for a first device. Nuclear explosions are measured in kilotons, an energy release equivalent to that of thousands of tons of TNT. Most countries’ first tests range from five to 25 kilotons. For example, the U.S.’s 1945 “Trinity” test had a yield of about 20 kilotons....
King penguins colonized a string of islands north of Antarctica about 15,000 years ago, after glaciers melted and the climate warmed, according to a new genetic study. The balmier weather gave the penguins two things they needed to thrive: ice-free pockets of land on which to raise their chicks, and food within swimming range for feeding those chicks, the study found. “When you have these two conditions, these two parameters that are met, then the population can just explode,” said study co-author Emiliano Trucchi, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Vienna in Austria....
Every month, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN—the longest-running magazine in the U.S. and an authoritative voice in science, technology and innovation—provides insight into scientific topics that affect our daily lives and capture our imagination, establishing the vital bridge between science and public policy. Key information from this month’s issue: • FUTURE HEALTH SPECIAL REPORT This month, Scientific American examines some of the promising medical devices in development. • Wireless monitors that warn patients of an impending heart attack or help to manage their diabetes can provide patients and doctors immediate data to better plan treatment options....
Malaria still kills more than a million people a year. Even though low-tech measures such as spraying insecticides and distributing treated bed netting to residents can reduce infection rates, poor countries, where most victims live, cannot afford them. As an alternative strategy, researchers have tried for years to genetically engineer mosquitoes so they will not transmit the disease. Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites that reproduce inside human liver and red blood cells and are passed from person to person by female Anopheles mosquitoes....
Earlier this week, the U.S. Post Office intercepted letters addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker (R–Miss.) and Pres. Barack Obama that contained a mysterious white powder. The substance turned out to be ricin, a deadly toxin that can kill within days. But just how dangerous were these attacks? Since the Obama administration was first warned about the dangers of new ricin attacks in 2010, it has requested periodic updates on the white, powdery substance—from where it is being produced to the places it’s being shipped....
The happiest place on Earth got seriously ill in 2015. A large outbreak of measles started in Disneyland in California, and the highly contagious and often deadly disease ultimately spread to 307 people across North America. It was only stopped after public health agencies traced thousands of potentially infected people and isolated the sick ones, quashing the epidemic. Local health agencies protected lives early this year in Oregon, when an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Multnomah County hospitalized four and killed one....
Although most of us recoil at the idea of “busywork,” such mindless tasks can boost our mood—as long as we have an excuse to perform them, according to a study in the July issue of Psychological Science. Psychologists at the University of Chicago and Shanghai Jiaotong University offered subjects a choice between rebuilding a beaded bracelet or sitting idly during a 15-minute wait. Most chose to sit idly—unless they were given the chance to rearrange the beads instead of to rebuild it as it was....
For the past decade NASA’s Terra spacecraft has examined key attributes of Earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere much the way a doctor tracks a patient’s vital signs. And like planetary physicians, Terra scientists have used this continuous stream of information to make an array of new diagnoses about the planet’s changing climate and environment. The flagship of NASA’s Earth-observing fleet, Terra was the first spacecraft designed to carry a suite of instruments uniquely able to accumulate an ongoing record of a wide variety of planetary health indicators—from carbon storage and cloud cover to wildfires and oil spills....
SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. Let’s be honest: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which the United Nations is expected to formally approve this week, are a mess. As they currently stand, the goals neither organize nor prioritize global efforts to improve the human condition while serving as stewards of the planet. As a result, they risk becoming an empty exercise that empowers business as usual in the field of global development....
On June 5-6, amateur and professional astronomers alike will be treated to a very rare celestial event: the trek of the planet Venus across the sun. Of course, there’s an app for that. Called VenusTransit and available on both the iOS (iPhone) and Android platforms, the app recreates a centuries-old experiment that was used to help calculate the size of the solar system, specifically the Earth’s distance from the sun....
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Flash flooding is a specific type of flooding that occurs in a short time frame after a precipitation event – generally less than six hours. It often is caused by heavy or excessive rainfall and happens in areas near rivers or lakes, but it also can happen in places with no water bodies nearby....
My PhD supervisor, a brilliant and inspiring man, used to jokingly tell me that he had passed his prime and that it was up to me to make the Nobel-prize winning discovery for our group. After all, Albert Einstein was just 26-years-old when he wrote his paper on Special Relativity. But are we really at our smartest in our 20s? What about the wisdom and experience that come with age? At what age do we strike the right balance between cognitive ability and expertise?...
Three quarters of the way into Food Evolution, a recent documentary about genetically engineered food, agricultural economist Charles Benbrook glances furtively around a crowded lobby. He’s just participated in a public debate over GMO technology, and moviegoers know his angle: Benbrook is the author of several influential scientific papers that have been rallying points for pro-organic and anti-GMO folks, including one suggesting pesticide use skyrocketed after the introduction of GMOs, and another claiming organic milk is more nutritious than conventional milk....
