Gloria Steinem said, “Women have always been an equal part of the past. We just haven’t been an equal part of history.” Along these lines, over the past few years, we discovered some pretty ugly news about our beloved Google Doodles. We had been making these embellishments to the corporate logo on our home page, often in honor of specific people on their birthdays, ever since the company was founded in 1998....
A few years after the first issue of this magazine was published, a New Jersey carpenter found traces of gold in California’s American River, setting in motion a Gold Rush in which some 100,000 prospectors flooded the Sierra Nevada seeking their fortune. Rufus Porter, inventor, muralist and founder of this magazine, saw a different opportunity than the average 49er. He wanted to ferry paying passengers from the East Coast to California via hydrogen airship, a huge craft that would make the trip in three days....
Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal revolutionized the study of the brain when he observed neurons for the first time. His investigations, now more than 100 years old, revealed intricate details of nerve cells in many different animals, including humans—rootlike dendrites attached to bulbous cell bodies, from which extend long, slender axons. Cajal’s examinations also revealed dendrites (via which nerve cells receive signals from other neurons) were much longer in humans than in rodents and other animals, even other non-human primates....
Psychologists argue over whether language influences how people think. It could, however, affect half of what they see. The view from the right eye is processed in the brain’s left hemisphere, which also seems to handle language. Investigators at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, tested how well the right and left fields of view distinguish between the colors known in English as blue and green. Most of the world’s languages actually use a single word for the two, suggesting that for English speakers, language influences the discrimination between blue and green....
Adapted from The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us about Success, by Kevin Dutton, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC (US), Doubleday Canada (Canada), Heinemann (UK), Record (Brazil), DTV (Germany), De Bezige Bij (Netherlands), NHK (Japan), Miraebook (Korea) and Lua de Papel (Portugal). Copyright © 2012 Kevin Dutton “Got anything sharp?” the woman at reception barks, as I deposit the entire contents of my briefcase—laptop, phone, pens—into a clear, shatter-resistant locker in the entrance hall....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Trade was a fundamental aspect of the ancient Greek world and following territorial expansion, an increase in population movements, and innovations in transport, goods could be bought, sold, and exchanged in one part of the Mediterranean which had their origin in a completely different and far distant region....
The annual return of the Asian monsoons is one of nature’s great cycles of renewal. Each summer, the onset of the wet season brings much-needed rain to millions of people across the continent. But scientists have noticed a puzzling trend in recent decades. Some of the monsoons, including the annual rains in India and parts of China, seem to be weakening over time, raising concerns about the long-term effects on water supplies and agriculture....
Scientific American presents Math Dude by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. This week’s episode is a bit different. No, I’m not going to sing the whole audio podcast version showtune style. And no, as much as I’d love to, I’m not going to do the whole thing using my awesome British accent. Instead this week’s show is the first in a new series of “Frequently Asked Question” episodes inspired by questions you’ve sent to mathdude@quickanddirtytips....
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - Almost a quarter of Europe’s bumblebees are at risk of extinction due to loss of habitats and climate change, threatening pollination of crops worth billions of dollars, a study showed on Wednesday. Sixteen of 68 bumblebee species in Europe are at risk, the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said. It is preparing a global study of the bees, whose honeybee cousins are in steep decline because of disease....
Like most everyone in the Corn Belt, Eric Woodford heard for years that stalks, husks, and cobs someday would not be discarded as field waste, but valued as the stuff that makes fuel. Rather than wait for that day, he set out to hasten its arrival. In the late 1990s, Woodford was running a custom farming operation in Minnesota, collecting corn waste for livestock, feed, and stable bedding. He tinkered for a decade on the equipment to make it do the job faster....
A sweeping ocean conveyor system that ushers warm tropical waters into the North Atlantic appears to have partly recovered from a near-collapse around the time that the Beatles were breaking up, but the system remains weaker than it had been since before humans figured out how to write modern music on a page. Powerful Atlantic Ocean currents fuel Gulf streams, affect sea levels, warm cities in continental Europe and North America, and bring nutrients up from ocean depths that help sustain marine ecosystems and fisheries....
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – In the Amharic language, Addis Ababa, named when the Ethiopian capital moved to the highland city at the end of the 19th century, means “new flower.” It is a fitting name for the host city of a conference whose aim is to encourage the new blossoming of another plant. The first Wheat for Food Security in Africa conference has gathered here to address a growing issue in the continent: Too many Africans are eating products made from wheat, and not enough are growing it....
Editor’s Note: This story referenced in the March 2009 column “50, 100, 150 Years Ago” was originally published in the March 1959 issue of Scientific American. For more on Darwin, see our tribute on his 200th birthday. For an update on the experiments described here, see an entry in Panda’s Thumb. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, the centenary of which we celebrate in 1959, was the fruit of 26 years of laborious accumulation of facts from nature....
People who have directly experienced flooding are more likely to be worried about climate change and willing to adopt energy-saving behavior, according to a new study. Researchers at two British universities based their findings on a 2010 survey of 1,822 individuals across the United Kingdom. “We show that those who report experience of flooding express more concern over climate change, see it as less uncertain and feel more confident that their actions will have an effect on climate change,” the authors write....
Most people probably associate three things with hearing aids: an elderly demographic, beige plastic construction and high-pitched feedback in public places. As it turns out, all those notions are now obsolete—or will be soon. The most popular hearing-aid style is still the one that rests over your ear—a design that debuted in the 1950s. You know what else is decades old? Our country’s system for getting and paying for hearing aids....
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing next week on “Making the Environmental Protection Agency Great Again.” The hearing is likely to delve into the subject of the “Secret Science Reform Act,” pushing it another step closer to reality. Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has said it is one of his priorities this year. The bill would require U.S. EPA to use only “transparent or reproducible” science to develop regulations and that such scientific data be posted online so that they can be scrutinized....
A host of potential complications could explain Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s newly announced medical leave of absence. The health of the 55-year-old tech executive has seemed tenuous to many observers since his previous liver transplant and bout with pancreatic cancer, and some doctors are speculating that medications could be contributing to his ailments. Jobs’s liver transplant, reportedly completed in March 2009 at a Memphis, Tenn., hospital, seemed at the time to be successful....
In the absence of news reports, bird flu might seem to have flown the coop. Unfortunately, it never actually went away—and is now worse than ever. “There are more flu infections in more countries than ever before,” said veterinarian William Karesh, head of the Field Veterinary Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), during a WSC conference in New York City last week. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 381 people worldwide have been infected—240 of them fatally—with the H5N1 strain of bird flu since 2003....
By Laura Philomin and Stuart Grudgings SINGAPORE/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Singapore and Malaysia are grappling with some of the driest weather they have ever seen, forcing the tiny city-state to ramp up supplies of recycled water while its neighbor rations reserves amid disruptions to farming and fisheries. Singapore, which experiences tropical downpours on most days, suffered its longest dry spell on record between January 13 and February 8 and has had little rain since....
Microsoft, Google and several more of the world’s largest and most influential technology companies have found a way to provide wireless Internet access that is so fast it makes today’s Wi-Fi networks seem as sluggish as dial-up service. The prospect, however, has big media broadcasters up in arms, because this blazing-fast network access may hamper television signals when they go digital next year. In a test conducted last year by the Federal Communications Commission, wireless devices blanked out digital programming on nearby television sets....
