Advances in science and technology over the past century have made us more self-reliant and less vulnerable to mishaps such as natural disasters or disease outbreaks. As a result, members of the middle class today are much better off in many ways than the wealthiest individuals were a century ago. I realized this fact on […]
Hi, I’m Scott Hershberger, with Scientific American as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellow. And here’s a short piece from the Septebmer 2020 issue of the magazine, in the section called Advances: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Science, Technology and Medicine. The article is titled “Quick Hits,” […]
As wildfires ravage the west coast, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to exact a toll on the nation as its citizens grapple with the economic fallout and businesses face uncertainty. The country is bracing itself for an even greater host of challenges in the coming months: the onset of the seasonal flu, uncertainty around the availability […]
If President Trump is able to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the nation’s highest bench, he may stymie climate action for generations to come. Legal experts say that the addition of a sixth conservative justice to the court could lock in opposition to expansive readings of the Clean Air Act that encompass […]
Last year, the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) voted overwhelmingly to amend its by-laws so that it could expel members for harassment or other types of misconduct. Nearly 16 months later, no one has been ousted and no one has used the new system to report known harassers within the NAS’s membership, Nature has learned. Marcia […]
Editor’s Note (9/21/20): This article was originally published online on March 23, 2016. We are republishing it in light of the news that a woman in Germany died as a result of a ransomware attack on the hospital where she was being treated. Experts suggest this event could be the first known case of a […]
Neutrinos are the oddballs of the subatomic particle family. They are everywhere, pouring in from the sun, deep space, and Earth and zipping through our bodies by the trillions every second. The particles are so tiny that they seldom interact with anything, making them extremely elusive and hard to study. Moreover, though neutrinos come in […]
It is 2018, the second year of my psychiatry residency training, and I’m in the shower, unable to stop the doubts: “What if I don’t know enough for my patients?” You know more than enough. “Do I remember that exact mechanism of that specific drug?” It’s okay to not remember everything. “No, it’s not. You’ve […]
Recently, there was a fake local “Asian restaurant” listing on Google Maps and Instagram involving students from my university which included menu items such as “mouse tail salad” and “marinated ostrich foreheads.” The restaurant’s name, menu and reviews—even if they were intended as a joke—were all despicable examples of the prevalence and perpetuation of anti-Asian […]
Stomach ulcers and other gastric wounds afflict one in eight people worldwide, but common conventional therapies have drawbacks. Now scientists aim to treat such problems by exploring a new frontier in 3-D printing: depositing living cells directly inside the human body. Just as 3-D printers set down layers of material to create structures, bioprinters extrude […]