Observations
Masks and Emasculation: Why Some Men Refuse to Take Safety Precautions
They think it makes them look weak, and avoiding that is evidently more important to them than demonstrating responsible behavior
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Observations
How a Landmark Physics Paper from the 1970s Uncannily Describes the COVID-19 Pandemic
Phil Anderson’s article “More Is Different” describes how different levels of complexity require new ways of thinking. And as the virus multiplies and spreads, that’s just what the human race desperately needs...
Observations
The Fight against COVID-19 Threatens to Cause Collateral Health Damage
The pandemic is no excuse to abandon chronic disease management and prevention
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It's just your imagination -- Or is it your memory?
Mind Matters Mind Matters is Sciam.com's "seminar blog" on the sciences of mind and brain. Each week, top researchers describe their disciplines' most significant new findings -- and what they, as fellow researchers, find most exciting, maddening, significant, odd, or otherwise noteworthy in the research driving their fields...
Vice President Cheney found to be in violation of the law--of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics shows up in editorial cartoons about as often as James K. Polk, which is why it's especially gratifying to see such a nuanced application of it in today's episode of This Modern World...
Thank you, Mr. Wizard
I am saddened by the news that Don Herbert, aka "Mr. Wizard" died yesterday at the age of 89. His weekly program, on NBC from 1951 to 1965, brought simple science to children—and made it fun...
Mama's boys are braver: Maternal presence as neural confidence builder
Welcome to
Mind Matters
Sciam.com's "seminar blog" on the sciences of mind and brain. Each week, top researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry explain and discuss the research driving their fields...
The Scent of a Man
Whether you find a man's smell pleasant or putrid lies in your DNA.
Savvy Animals -- Including One Who Can Putt and Dunk
Welcome to
Mind Matters
Sciam.com's "seminar blog" on the sciences of mind and brain. Each week, top researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry explain and discuss the research driving their fields...
Good-Bye Blue Monday
Good-bye Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., whose resemblance to that other great American satirist, Mark Twain, is almost uncanny. And I believe his literary doppelganger would have enjoyed visiting the Vonnegutian universe populated by Kilgore Trout, Wanda June, Eliot Rosewater, Francine Pefko, Paul Proteus, Billy Pilgrim, Howard Campbell, Jr., the planet Tralfamadore, ice nine, granfalloons, foma, Illium, N.Y., and, of course, the lovely Montana Wildhack.Call him a pessimist, a stoic, or a dark and cranky curmudgeon, Vonnegut, like Twain, supplied what any self-satisfied civilization occasionally needs to keep it honest—a good thwacking from a brilliant satirist.And thwack he did...
Selective Vision: The Brain's Spin Machine Starts Early
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Mind Matters
With the election season hard upon us and the spin machines working overtime, we thought it sensible to rerun a post from last year about a sort of spin machine recently discovered in the brain...
What the Hex Going On at Saturn's Pole?
When it comes to where the atmospheric action is in the outer planets, move over Jupiter. As if having those gaudy rings weren't enough, Saturn is definitely hogging all the attention by sporting some bizarre atmospheric activity at opposite ends of the planet: polar storms, one with a cyclopean eye and the other shaped like a—hexagon...
Can We Control Our Fears?
Welcome to
Mind Matters
Sciam.com's "seminar blog" on the sciences of mind and bbrain. Each week, top researchers in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry explain and discuss the research driving their fields...
Blog Index
@ScientificAmerican
STAFFBehind the scenes at Scientific American
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Anecdotes from the Archive
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Anthropology in Practice
Exploring the human condition.
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Beautiful Minds
Insights into intelligence, creativity, personality, and well-being
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Budding Scientist
Everything you always wanted to know about raising science-literate kids
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Cross-Check
Critical views of science in the news
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Dark Star Diaries
STAFF
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Dog Spies
Explore the science behind the dog in your bed
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Extinction Countdown
News and research about endangered species from around the world
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Eye of the Storm
The Science Behind Extreme Weather
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Frontiers for Young Minds
Science by and for kids ages 8-15
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Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American
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Hot Planet
Climate science in a changing world
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Illusion Chasers
Illusions, Delusions, and Everyday Deceptions
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Life, Unbounded
Discussion and news about planets, exoplanets, and astrobiology
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Observations
Opinion, arguments & analyses from guest experts and from the editors of Scientific American
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Roots of Unity
Mathematics: learning it, doing it, celebrating it.
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Rosetta Stones
Adventures in the good science of rock-breaking.
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SA Visual
STAFFIllustrating science since 1845
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Talking back
STAFFA science blog, sans blague
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The Artful Amoeba
A Blog About the Weird Wonderfulness of Life on Earth
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Voices
Exploring and celebrating diversity in science.
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