As marchers in the United States and around the world filled the streets this past week to protest against police brutality and racial injustice, Black scientists grieved openly on social media, calling for action on racism in society and in science. Many stated ways in which institutions and colleagues, from collaborators to meeting organizers, could […]
Currently, quantum computing researchers and enthusiasts need to know quantum programming; it’s simply a must. Soon, though, all they will need is a quantum app store and a line of code. Not an app store like in your smartphone, but similar to a code repository of today, such as GitHub—a type of digital library where […]
Originally published in November 1845 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “A new method has been proposed for extending the lines of the Magnetic Telegraph across rivers and bays. It is proposed to support the wires in an elevated position, by means of elliptic balloons. These balloons, being each 60 feet in length, will support about 40 […]
Hundreds of studies on nature-based solutions to extreme events show that “green infrastructure” is often cheaper and more effective than engineered projects like dams, levees and sea walls, according to a new analysis. Experts say federal and state governments should heed those findings and increase funding for natural landscapes and systems to reduce climate disaster […]
Even after decades of searching, scientists have never seen a particle of dark matter. Evidence for the substance’s existence is close to incontrovertible, but no one yet knows what it is made of. For decades physicists have hoped dark matter would prove to be heavy—consisting of so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that could be […]
Ask any economist how we should respond to climate change, and they will tell you that the most effective strategy is to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, ideally through a carbon tax. This reflects a basic economic principle: the waste produced from any activity is a cost that has to be paid. We […]
Everyone has goals they’re striving to achieve, even during a global pandemic. Maybe you’re a scientist working around the clock to find a cure for COVID-19 (if so, thank you and good luck!). Or maybe you’re stuck working from home and pushing hard to hit 10,000 steps a day while confined to a small, urban […]
Nature is under no obligation to conform to even our mathematical ideas—even the most brilliant ones — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com Source link
The Dead Sea Scrolls are religious manuscripts that were written from the third century BCE to the first century CE. They were discovered in the 1940s and 50s, in caves along the shore of the Dead Sea. The parchments have been the topic of intense religious, literary and historical debate. They also continue to be […]
Along with COVID-19, something else is spreading across America: conspiracy theories. In the dark alleys of the Internet, people have concocted a dizzying array of unfounded explanations for the pandemic. The phenomenon doesn’t surprise John Cook, a cognitive scientist at George Mason University. “When people feel threatened, when they feel out of control, when they […]