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 World Health Organization (WHO) quickly responded to a group of researchers’ essay published early this week (7/6/20) urging public health authorities […]
Originally published in November 1854 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “Sir David Brewster, who supposes the stars to be inhabited, as being ‘the hope of the Christian,’ asks, ‘is it necessary that an immortal soul be hung upon a skeleton of bone; must it see with two eyes, and rest on a duality of limbs? May […]
Global temperatures are inching closer to a worrisome climate milestone, scientists reported this week. That doesn’t mean ambitious climate goals are out of reach, they say — but the deadline to act is rapidly approaching. According to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization and the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office, there’s about a 24% […]
Originally published in August 1911 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “Unmarked by any pomp or ceremony and with a lack of ostentation that seemed totally inappropriate to the importance of the occasion, the one millionth patent was issued on Tuesday, August 8th, 1911. The wheel of chance which decided the recipient of the epoch-making patent—awarded to […]
In the years leading up to the roaring 2020s, young people were once again dropping acid. Onetime Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary died almost 25 years ago, after which some of his ashes were launched into space. But from 2015 to 2018, the rate of “turning on and tuning in” with LSD, to paraphrase Leary, increased […]
For centuries humans believed the ocean was so vast that it was impossible to do it measurable harm. But we now know human activities can destroy critical marine habitats, dangerously pollute seawater and make sea environments more acidic. Overharvesting has disrupted food chains and directly pushed many ocean species into the critically endangered category—and has […]
Between us, we have more than a century of experience in climate research, literature assessment, and scholarly support for domestic and international efforts to respond to environmental challenges. We have learned the value of rigorous scientific research, even when it challenges conventional wisdom, and of skepticism where it is appropriate. As we watch the response […]
In 1947, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl set sail from Peru, on a balsa wood raft called Kon-Tiki. As he explained a few years later in the documentary of the same name, Heyerdahl was convinced that indigenous people from South America had used a similar craft to settle Polynesia. <<Kon-Tiki clip: “The only way to […]
In Lidia Morawska’s home city of Brisbane on Australia’s east coast, roadside signs broadcast a simple message: ‘Wash hands, save lives.’ She has no problem with that: “Hand washing is always a good measure,” says the aerosol scientist, who works at the Queensland University of Technology. But the sign might be outdated. Converging lines of […]
Climate action taken by the world today wouldn’t be noticed for decades to come, according to researchers who say warming on Earth won’t start to slow down for at least 20 years. And that’s probably an optimistic scenario. A study published Tuesday in Nature Communications illustrates how the rewards for aggressive action would come much later. If global carbon […]