Former Vice President Joe Biden had already assembled a task force of activists and liberal officials to rewrite his climate plan. But there was a problem: Organized labor hadn’t been invited to the weekly Zoom calls. Biden had tailored his presidential campaign to accommodate the unions that build and maintain natural gas projects, and unions […]
The items below are highlights from the free newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign-up here. Please consider a monthly contribution to support this newsletter. The role that symptom-free (“asymptomatic”) people infected with the new coronavirus play in spreading it grew more clear with a study […]
An enormous explosion in Beirut’s seaport area this week ruined nearby buildings and caused damage and shattered windows across the city, killing scores of people and wounding thousands more. As videos of the disaster spread on social media, people around the world immediately began speculating about the cause. Lebanese government sources eventually said it was […]
Dr. Eric Coe jumped at the chance to help test a COVID-19 vaccine. At his urging, so did his girlfriend, his son and his daughter-in-law. All received shots last week at a clinical research site in central Florida. “My main purpose in doing this was so I could spend more time with my family and […]
Originally published in August 1946 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “According to one contention, magnesium will eventually replace iron as the world’s basic constructional raw material. Hence, it might be feasible to call the next age of man the ‘magnesium age.’ The element appears to be the only ‘basic’ material of which the supply is inexhaustible: […]
Below Venus’s toxic clouds of sulfuric acid is an apocalyptic world, with temperatures hot enough to melt lead and pressures that could crush heavy machinery. But it might not always have been so. In 2016 Michael Way of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and his colleagues applied the first three-dimensional climate model to early […]
At a press briefing on March 22, Donald Trump announced: “We’re at war, in a true sense we’re at war, and we are fighting an invisible enemy.” Yet viruses are not sovereign nations; they don’t have armies, navies or air forces. They might not even be alive. So perhaps war is not only an inadequate […]
Contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs spoke with Arthur Caplan, head of the NYU School of Medicine’s division of medical ethics, about some of the ethical issues that researchers have to consider… — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com Source link
On a day in late June, Navajo and Pueblo tribal activists met virtually with EPA and White House officials to urge them to reverse a decision that would weaken rules governing the release of methane at oil and gas wells. EPA is preparing to finalize a rule later this month that would significantly lighten requirements […]
Originally published in June 1894 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “Mr. Francis Galton affirms that ‘the patterns of the papillary ridges upon the bulbous palmar surfaces of the terminal phalanges of the fingers and thumbs are absolutely unchangeable throughout life, and show in different individuals an infinite variety of forms and peculiarities. The chance of two […]