As the story of the Norfolk Southern chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, continues to unfold, we are learning how this freight train derailment polluted local waterways and released hazardous contaminants into the air. People returning to their homes speak of health issues and dead pets, and the Environmental Protection Agency is now forcing the […]
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The U.S. Needs a Formal Reckoning on the COVID Pandemic
In better times, the U.S. has, with some humility, owned up to its failures. Commissions have investigated tragedies such as Pearl Harbor and 9 /11. Presidential blue-ribbon panels bulwarked the Social Security program in 1983 and overhauled NASA’s space shuttle program after the 1986 Challenger disaster. Three years into the COVID pandemic, more than 1.1 […]
Why a Blizzard Is Hitting Southern California
It’s not every day that snow closes roads near southern California’s city of Santa Barbara or that flakes fall on the mountain where the iconic Hollywood sign sits. Those scenes come courtesy of a powerful winter storm that is bringing unusual blizzard conditions to the southern parts of the state. The National Weather Service’s (NWS’s) […]
Building Resilience in the Face of Climate Change [Sponsored]
This podcast was produced for Battelle by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors. This interview with Justin Sanchez, a technical fellow at Battelle, will discuss how society can build resilience in response to the immediate threat of climate change. At its second annual Innovations In Climate Resilience conference, […]
How the U.S. Is Planning to Boost Floating Wind Power
CLIMATEWIRE | The Biden administration announced initiatives yesterday to prepare states for floating offshore wind — a young but fast-emerging type of power that some say could revolutionize renewables on the West Coast. The plans from the White House, Department of Energy and other federal agencies include a 20-month study on how to build out transmission […]
Google’s Quantum Computer Hits Key Milestone by Reducing Errors
Physicists at Google have reached what they describe as their second milestone along the path to a useful quantum computer. At a laboratory in Santa Barbara, California, they have demonstrated that they can lower the error rate of calculations by making their quantum code bigger. The feat, reported in Nature on 22 February, follows up on a celebrated […]
How to Engineer Buildings That Withstand Earthquakes
Our planet is covered by tectonic plates that are slowly moving around, pushing into or sliding past one another along boundaries called faults. Friction sometimes causes two of these plates to get stuck to each other spots along a fault. Tension builds up over years, decades or even centuries until suddenly the fault snaps. The […]
Why Google’s Supreme Court Case Could Rattle the Internet
We’ve all lost countless hours to online recommendation algorithms that suggest we might enjoy watching yet another cat video or following just one more influencer. But in mere months, social media platforms may need to find new ways to keep users engaged—and the Internet might be in for a major overhaul. On Tuesday the Supreme […]
Love and the Brain: Do Partnerships Really Make Us Happy? Here’s What the Science Says
SUBSCRIBE: Apple | Spotify [CLIP: Music] Shayla Love: I’m going to bring you into a sacred space. It’s a group text shared by me and two other single women, where we discuss online dating. Sarah: I mean, I can definitely say this: you’re not unhappier after your breakup … Love: Yeah … K: I mean, haven’t women […]
Global Internet Connectivity Is at Risk from Climate Disasters
The flow of digital information through fiber-optic cables lining the sea floor could be compromised by climate change. That’s according to new research published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews by scientists from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre and the University of Central Florida. They found that ocean and nearshore disturbances caused by extreme weather events have exposed “hot […]