With much of the nation’s attention focused on Western wildfires, a different climate disaster arrived overnight with a roundhouse kick. Hurricane Sally this morning is lashing parts of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle with torrential rain and life-threatening storm surge, according to the National Hurricane Center. By lunch, it could dump between 10 and […]
The detection of a possible sign of life in Venus’ clouds is just the beginning. On Monday (Sept. 14), researchers announced that they’d spotted the fingerprint of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere, at an altitude where temperatures and pressures are similar to those here on Earth at sea level. On our planet, phosphine is produced only by microbes and […]
President Donald Trump moved to blame his Democratic competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, for not instituting a national mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic. The claim, made at an ABC News town hall Tuesday with undecided voters in Pennsylvania, is misleading for two reasons: Biden has, in fact, urged all state governors to mandate […]
There is a joke in New Mexico that the rest of the country does not know the state is part of the U.S. This summer, as cases of COVID-19 surged in many parts of the nation, New Mexico really did seem to stand apart. While Arizona and Texas, its neighbors to the west and east, […]
Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history. This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly. The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science. The most devastating example is his dishonest […]
For many of us, living in a COVID-19 world feels as if we have been thrown into an alternative reality. We live day and night inside the same walls. We fear touching groceries that arrive at our doorstep. If we venture into town we wear masks, and we get anxious if we pass someone who […]
The CDC’s Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, familiarly known as the MMWR, has been around for nearly a century, and is sacrosanct in the public health community. Loaded with reliable, timely data and analyses and authored by the world’s top scientists, it is required reading, especially during a pandemic. To meddle with, delay or politicize […]
Scientists often speak of a “new Arctic” to describe the region’s rapidly changing landscape. Temperatures are skyrocketing, sea ice is dwindling and many experts believe the far north is quickly transforming into something unrecognizable. This week, new research confirms that a new Arctic climate system is, indeed, emerging. In fact, some aspects of the Arctic climate have […]
The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to follow British regulators in resuming a coronavirus vaccine trial that was halted when a participant suffered spinal cord damage, even as the National Institutes of Health has launched an investigation of the case. “The highest levels of NIH are very concerned,” said Dr. Avindra Nath, intramural […]
I interviewed psychologist Susan Blackmore 20 years ago while doing research for my book Rational Mysticism. Here, lightly edited, is my description of her: “Her hair was dyed orange, red, and yellow, dark-rooted, cut short as a boy’s, with sideburns plunging like daggers past each multi-ringed ear. Words spewed from her pell-mell, accompanied by equally […]