Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, taught that the human ability to make choices gives us a unique resilience, since our fate is not simply a function of fate or fortune. Frankl noted that even in the most devastating, inhumane conditions, finding meaning, purpose and hope can engender emotional strength and the capacity to […]
Its sting is excruciating to people, but it is a bigger threat to honeybees vital for agriculture — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com Source link
Originally published in January 1859 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “The question of the utility of comets has always held a conspicuous place. S. W. Fullom, well known as the author of some pleasant books, suggests a use for comets in his Marvels of Science: Descartes, Euler and many others believed that there is a subtle […]
Scientific American May 2020 Being female is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Why? This is how memory loss begins, Sophie tells me: You show up at work, forgetting that you are supposed to be at a breakfast meeting with a client. You blank on the names of your neighbors. Soon enough you walk into a […]
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“And yet it moves.” This may be the most famous line attributed to the renowned scientist Galileo Galilei. The “it” in the quote refers to Earth. “It moves” was a startling denial of the notion, adopted by the Catholic Church at the time, that Earth was at the center of the universe and therefore stood […]
President Richard Nixon famously declared the war on cancer in 1971. For a long time, the United States was losing, but the tide has finally turned. The American Cancer Society recently reported the largest single-year reduction in cancer mortality ever—a 2.2 percent drop. Prevention—especially big declines in smoking—and advanced treatments targeting late stage cancers have […]
We recognize our friends’ faces. And we’re not alone. Many social animals can identify individuals of their own species by their facial features. That’s important, because they need to be able to adjust their behavior depending on who they encounter. And research has shown that some species of monkeys, birds, and domesticated animals can even […]
Originally published in March 1901 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “A correspondent from the city of Boone, Iowa, sends $5 and some sketches of a table he is building, evidently intended for some gambling establishment. There is a plate of soft iron in the middle of the table under the cloth, which by an electric current […]
In recent weeks, astronomers have been monitoring strange, high-energy emissions from the corpse of a long-dead star some 30,000 light-years away. Within the emissions, they found something surprising: a powerful blast of radio waves that lasted mere milliseconds. The blast was, in fact, the brightest outburst ever seen from this star or any of its […]
Even in the best of times, the U.S. health system has not always been delivering for all women. Maternal mortality rates have increased over the last decade and racial disparities in maternal health outcomes have persisted. Today, we are witnessing in real time the ability of our health systems to build and flex capacity in […]