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
Blogs
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
Recent Posts
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Dance your PhD is as much about VIDEO PRODUCTION as it is about DANCE
The winners of Science Magazine’s fourth annual ‘Dance your PhD’ contest were announced last week. As usual, the productions in the top spots are creative, quirky and have great entertainment value...
A Very Happy Birthday to a Very Special Lady
The Statue of Liberty. She is a symbol of freedom, an icon of New York City, and today is her birthday. In honor to celebrate, I’d like to share some images from an article from the August 14th, 1886 Scientific American that highlighted the methods of assembling Lady Liberty...
Diversity by Design
The recent Nature paper from Jef Boeke's group, "Synthetic chromosome arms function in yeast and generate phenotypic diversity by design," begins with an appropriately futuristic sentence: "The first phase of any genome engineering project is design." While there have been efforts to redesign viral genomes and chemically synthesize bacterial genomes, whole genomes of living cells are not yet something that can readily be designed from scratch...
Open Lab 2011: Blogging Comes of Age
I visited a science writing class recently at a Nameless University, where the conversation turned to the changing landscape of 21st century media and the vital role of blogs and social networking within it...
Are birds' tweets grammatical?
Are humans the only species with enough smarts to craft a language? Most of us believe that we are. Although many animals have their own form of communication, none has the depth or versatility heard in human speech...
God species review
I wrote the following review a couple of months ago but failed to publish it. I was reminded of this when Martin Robbins asked yesterday on his Guardian blog: "Is environmentalism too left wing?" If there is one reason to read Mark Lynas’ book The God Species, it’s because of his exposition of the ‘planetary boundaries’ concept...
A Modest Proposal: Virtual Keyboards via Kinect Eyeglasses
In the series "A Modest Proposal," my colleagues and I will propose inventions and projects that I think are eminently doable and would love made real.
Books: Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis
Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis By Cynthia BarnettPublished in 2011 by Beacon Press, Boston MAISBN 978-0-80700-317-6Buy this book at Amazon.com (hardcover) or on your Kindle Full disclosure: I solicited via e-mail and received a copy of this book for free in exchange for my promise of a published review...
Tree of Life by Michele Banks
If you follow the #scienceart hashtag on Twitter and G+, you'll know that Michele Banks aka @artologica is one of the most active and vocal artists in this new movement.
Can Collective Intelligence Provide Answers to Climate Change Questions?
Few science policy issues today are as complex or divisive as climate change. For that very reason a team of researchers is using the topic as part of a project that seeks to better understand and solve challenging society-level problems by leveraging the collective intelligence of Internet users worldwide.The Climate CoLab project, developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (M.I.T.) Collective Intelligence Lab, uses an online forum to encourage institutional and citizen scientists alike to develop proposals for addressing climate change and then improve those proposals based on Web community feedback...
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
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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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Guest Blog
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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