Joey Chestnut was in the zone, experiencing a competitive performance of a lifetime. Even when he was just a minute away from breaking his own world record, and most likely in severe discomfort, his face didn’t show any signs of stress. That’s probably because his cheeks were bulging like a chipmunk, as his mouth was […]
Archaeologists excavating a cave in the mountains of central Mexico have unearthed evidence that people occupied the area more than 30,000 years ago—suggesting that humans arrived in North America at least 15,000 years earlier than thought. The discovery, which includes hundreds of ancient stone tools, is backed up by a fresh statistical analysis that incorporates […]
Originally published in November 1919 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “France’s task of beating swords into ploughshares included the conversion of tanks into something having peacetime value. Some have been employed for towing canal barges; others have become agricultural tractors; others have made their way into the factory. But the most novel conversion is no doubt […]
Scientific American July 2020 Backup seeds—held in storage as insurance against climate change—come from nearly every country in the world The Svalbard Global Seed Vault recently received seeds from 33 countries, pushing the total number of samples stored there to 1.05 million. Each sample is a pouch of seeds belonging to one genotype; pouches sit […]
In 1968 an exhibit entitled Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The first major event of its kind, Cybernetic Serendipity’s aim was to “present an area of activity which manifests artists’ involvement with science, and the scientists’ involvement with the arts,” wrote British art […]
In an attempt to cut short a brainstorming session with my collaborators, I joked recently that “we should stop exploring new research ideas before they turn into too much work.” These circumstances were unusual. Most often, scientific projects do not stem from extensive brainstorming sessions. New papers simply follow previous ones. For example, in our […]
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is nearly home. Having collected samples from the asteroid Ryugu last year, the spacecraft is just months away from returning them to Earth. The samples contain material that likely dates back to the dawn of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago. They could provide fresh insights into how celestial bodies came […]
[Sounds of the Panama rainforest] “So what you’re listening to now, that’s a recording from the rainforest.” That’s Marc Holdereid, of the University of Bristol in the U.K. He specializes in bioacoustics: how animals produce sound and communicate with the sounds they make. In the recording you just listened to, Holdereid removed the sounds we […]
Originally published in August 1846 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “It is well known that there is a constant emission of hydrogen from the decomposition of various substances; and that this gas, being buoyant, has a tendency to rise to the surface of the atmosphere. According to one view, there is therefore no doubt that immense […]
Hurricane-prone states are experiencing some of the nation’s sharpest increases in COVID-19 infections, raising fears that a major storm will have deadly consequences if people in its path refuse to evacuate to avoid contagion. The number of infections nationwide has more than doubled since the start of hurricane season on June 1, passing 3.8 million […]