Every weekday afternoon some 20 mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists gather in the Seattle suburbs to share tea. The conversation runs from the latest on number theory to the fairest way to decide a closely contested election. The gathering spot is not the faculty lounge of an elite university but rather a meeting area in Building 113, the nondescript glass and steel structure that houses the Theory Group of Microsoft Research....
If you’re looking for insight into the true you, there’s a buffet of personality questionnaires available. Some are silly—like the internet quiz that tells everyone who takes it that they are procrastinators at the core. Other questionnaires, developed and sold as tools to help people hire the right candidate or find love, take themselves more seriously. The trouble is, if you ask the experts, most of these might not be worth the money....
Two recent discoveries have shed new light on the source of diversity in the human population. In one study, scientists examined patterns in DNA recombination, the process by which a person’s genome is consolidated into one set of chromosomes to pass onto an offspring. In the other, a link was made between variants of a particular gene and the extent to which DNA recombination occurs. In human testes and ovaries, where sperm cells and egg cells, respectively, are manufactured, sections of chromosomes inherited from a person’s parents are shuffled together to create a collage of genetic material that is passed to offspring....
What allows a creative enterprise—a film studio, a design firm, a start-up—to flourish? It’s an old question, but one that has become increasingly relevant in the transition to an information economy. In the new book Collective Genius, a creative team came together to offer their insights: Linda A. Hill, of Harvard Business School; Greg Brandeau, of Pixar and Walt Disney; Emily Truelove, of the MIT Sloan School of Management; and Kent Lineback, an experienced executive and co-author with Hill of Being the Boss....
LAGO DE SAN IGNACIO, Baja California - The season of migration has come again to the warm blue waters off the coast of Mexico. Mother gray whales are nursing their newborn calves, plumping them up for the 6,000-mile trip next month to summer feeding grounds in the Arctic. This migration, one of the longest of any of the world’s wild mammals, has gone on for thousands of years. Increasingly, the watery voyage raises questions about how the changing climate is affecting species that live in the Arctic, the part of the world transforming most dramatically from humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions....
Our brains are exquisitely tuned to perceive, recognize and remember faces. We can easily find a friend’s face among dozens or hundreds of unfamiliar faces in a busy street. We look at each other’s facial expressions for signs of appreciation and disapproval, love and contempt. We carefully select the images to go with our Facebook profiles. And even after we have corresponded or spoken on the phone with somebody for a long time, we are often relieved when we meet him or her in person and are able to put “a face to the name....
The leading cause of infant death in developed countries, sudden infant death syndrome, is still largely a medical mystery. Past studies have revealed that in the brain stems of more than half of infants who die from SIDS, the neurons that produce serotonin—a chemical responsible for regulating heart rate, body temperature and mood—are overly prevalent and abnormally shaped. Until now, no one has known how these problems might cause death, but a July 4 Science study reveals clues about what might be going wrong in SIDS and how doctors might prevent it....
For every inside there is an outside, and for every outside there is an inside; though they are different, they go together. —Alan Watts, Man, Nature, and the Nature of Man, 1991 I grew up in a devout and practicing Roman Catholic family with Purzel, a fearless and high-energy dachshund. He, as with all the other, much larger dogs that subsequently accompanied me through life, showed plenty of affection, curiosity, playfulness, aggression, anger, shame and fear....
The former astronaut and U.S. senator was being hospitalized at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University in Columbus when he died. In 2014, Glenn suffered a minor stroke, affecting his vision, after undergoing heart-valve replacement surgery. “We are saddened by the loss of Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. A true American hero. Godspeed, John Glenn. Ad astra,” NASA wrote on Twitter. [John Glenn: An American Hero’s Greatest Moments]...
Lasers can be used to identify chemical powders such as explosives or fertilizers from hundreds of meters away, a team of researchers reports in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors exploited a technique called Raman spectroscopy, in which a laser sets molecules in a substance vibrating, twisting and wagging. The molecules then re-emit, or scatter, photons of slightly lower energies than the incoming ones. The difference in the energy is determined by the properties of the molecules, and thus the scattered photons carry a unique fingerprint of the substance....
As the heat of summer fades into the cool of fall in the U.S., air-conditioning becomes more luxury than necessity. Yet demand for cool, dry air during hot spells is on the rise—and not just because of global warming. The U.S. expends roughly 185 billion kilowatt-hours of energy each year on home cooling, the most of any nation in the world. Plus, air-conditioner sales worldwide are growing by roughly 20 percent per year, with the newly affluent in China and India leading the way....
Perhaps you were trying to solve a math problem, make furniture fit in a small space or understand why your friend got upset at you. Or maybe your solution was larger scale. You developed a better procedure for operating part of a company, a wearable computer or cheaper method of delivering products to homes. Whether small or large, such moments of insight are part of human progress. They can also be exhilarating....
A crackling fireball that exploded over Russia last year appears to share an orbit with a huge asteroid discovered in October 2014, a new study reports. The Kola fireball was spotted on April 19, 2014, as it lit up the night sky above the Kola Peninsula near the Finnish-Russian border. Its orbit is “disturbingly similar” to the asteroid 2014 UR116, slated to pass by the moon in 2017, the study authors said....
A meteor that exploded over Russia this morning was the largest recorded object to strike the Earth in more than a century, scientists say. Infrasound data collected by a network designed to watch for nuclear weapons testing suggests that today’s blast released hundreds of kilotons of energy. That would make it far more powerful than the nuclear weapon tested by North Korea just days ago and the largest rock crashing on the planet since a meteor broke up over Siberia’s Tunguska river in 1908....
A new era for nuclear power is taking shape as third-generation reactors, designed to be simpler and safer, inch through the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) design certification process. Much of nuclear’s revival hinges on the ability of new reactors to outshine those of yore in terms of safety, economics, construction time and life span. Of the 26 new reactor applications under current NRC scrutiny, 14 are for Westinghouse Electric Co....
In our experience, nothing ever really ends. When we die, our bodies decay and the material in them returns to the earth and the air, allowing for the creation of new life. We live on in what comes after. But will that always be the case? Might there come a point sometime in the future when there is no “after”? Depressingly, modern physics suggests the answer is yes. Time itself could end....
By Zoë Corbyn Those paleontologists who name the most new dinosaur species are the least likely to get it right, a survey of nearly two centuries of research has found. The trend is as true for modern researchers as it was for their 19th-century forebears.Michael Benton, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol, UK, analyzed the work of 321 authors active between 1824 and 2004. Of these, the 23 most prolific, who each named more than 10 species, were responsible for 665 of the 1,400 dinosaur and prehistoric bird names designated in the period....
One of the first new satellites launched in the Trump era will provide invaluable insight into climate change, though it is being touted primarily for its ability to predict weather. The Joint Polar Satellite System-1 will serve multiple functions, even as it has been described by the Trump administration as an important tool to help prepare for future storms. The satellite will also provide data essential to understanding how climate change is transforming the planet....
Every September arctic ground squirrels in Alaska, Canada and Siberia retreat into burrows more than a meter beneath the tundra, curl up in nests built from grass, lichen and caribou hair, and begin to hibernate. As their lungs and hearts slow, the rivers of blood flowing through their bodies dwindle and their core body temperatures plummet, dipping below the freezing point of water. Electrical signals zipping along crisscrossing neural highways vanish in many areas of the brain....
Why won’t my brain just let me relax? Why do I have such a short fuse? Why do I feel so sad? I wish I could just pull myself up by the emotional bootstraps and get happy! These are some of the most common questions my therapy clients ask. And they’re all thoughts I’ve had about my own emotions. What we’re really saying is, “Negative emotions are bad. I want to get rid of them....
