News

Can people ID infectious disease by cough and sneeze sounds?

You’re at the supermarket trying to choose a ripe tomato when behind you you hear [cough sound]. If you’re like…

5 years ago

Chicago Learned Climate Lessons from Its Deadly 1995 Heat Wave

Twenty-five years ago this week, the Chicago coroner’s office was swimming in corpses. It began as a trickle, when four…

5 years ago

Chinese Spacecraft Poised for First Mars Mission

With a five-meter-wide, 57-meter-tall rocket waiting to blast off from China’s southern island of Hainan, the nation is quietly making…

5 years ago

This Photo of the Sun Is the Closest Ever Taken

This image—the closest ever taken of the Sun—shows the corona teeming with thousands of miniature solar flares, which scientists have…

5 years ago

Nobel Prize Winner Questions Peacock’s Feathers

Originally published in November 1954 Credit: Scientific AmericanAdvertisement “When a golden pheasant cock displays his brilliant plumage before the hen,…

5 years ago

Rushing Science in the Face of a Pandemic Is Understandable, But Risky

Half a year into the coronavirus pandemic, many of its enormous public health, economic and political ramifications are still poorly…

5 years ago

Cape Canaveral Prepares for First Polar Launches in 60 Years

Scientific American July 2020Florida will soon reopen to launches for pole-orbiting spacecraft Sixty years ago the U.S. Air Force repurposed its…

5 years ago

How Many Aliens Are in the Milky Way? Astronomers Turn to Statistics for Answers

In the 12th episode of Cosmos, which aired on December 14, 1980, the program’s co-creator and host Carl Sagan introduced…

5 years ago

Second Coronavirus Strain May Be More Infectious–but Some Scientists Are Skeptical

The hubbub around mutations in the virus that causes COVID-19—and how they might make it more infectious—has been around since…

5 years ago

How Galileo Battled the Science Deniers of His Time

Galileo could be, let's say, prickly. “Look, he was a genius, and he was a truly unusual person, but he…

5 years ago