Albatross—majestic, wide-winged seabirds—skim the ocean’s surface or dive into the water to catch fish, squid and crustaceans. They also seize opportunity, sometimes swooping down to grab the hooked bait trailed behind longline fishing vessels. But this apparently easy meal comes with a costly risk: the beaks and bodies of the birds often get snagged, and […]
Originally published in January 1917 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “In the year just closed, the U.S. has produced more automobiles, both passenger carrying and commercial vehicle types, than have ever before been made in the same period. The development of the automobile mechanism has reached that point where the majority of automobiles incorporate the same […]
When a concert opens with a refrain from your favorite song, you are swept up in the music, happily tapping to the beat and swaying with the melody. All around you, people revel in the same familiar music. You can see that many of them are singing, the lights flashing to the rhythm, while other […]
Any mask worn for day-to-day protection against COVID-19 is going to be imperfect, at least for now. Supplies of N95 respirators—the most effective mask type—should find their way to those in daily close contact with infected people. This requirement leaves the rest of us reusable cloth face coverings and single-use paper surgical masks. (The latter […]
This essay is adapted from the book Cosmology’s Century (Princeton University Press). Robert Dicke came out of war research, specifically radar and other microwave technology, at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. He would eventually establish a productive research group—one of the many scientists to do so after the end of World War II. Dicke liked astronomy; […]
You can tell a lot about people’s general state-of-mind based on their social media feeds. Are they always tweeting about their biggest peeves? Or posting pics of particularly cute kitties? Well, in a similar fashion, researchers are turning to Twitter for clues about the overall happiness of entire geographic communities. What they’re finding is that […]
When I was younger, like most kids, I’d always look forward to the days when I could go to work with my dad. He’s an infectious-disease doctor at Elmhurst Hospital, in Queens, so there was always plenty of excitement in the neighborhood that still now remains one of my favorites in all of New York. […]
[CLIP: Busy street sounds] This is the sound of a neighborhood in Kolkata, India, in December 2016. It was recorded by resident Sukanta Majumdar. [CLIP: Quiet area with birds singing.] And this is what that same neighborhood sounded like on April 1 of this year, after the COVID-19 lockdown. “It’s like a unique place in time that we […]
In many places all over the world, a mask has become mandatory to slow down the spread of SARS-CoV-2. People wear one on the bus or train, during shopping trips or at doctor’s appointments. How does that practice change basic communication? Does a face covering impair social interaction? Facial expression and emotion researcher Ursula Hess, […]
The Ojibwe people of modern-day Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin have for 1,000 years adhered to a spiritual prophecy to live “where food grows on the water.” That food is native wild rice, or “manoomin” in the Anishinaabe language of the Ojibwe. But with an increasingly unpredictable climate across the “Five Freshwater Seas,” as the Great […]