Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. BOOK REVIEW: The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe by Frank Close

    Review by Devin Powell.

  2. BOOK REVIEW: Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World’s Most Common Man-made Material by Robert Courland

    Review by Sid Perkins.

  3. Neuroscience

    Demystifying the Mind

    A special report on the scientific struggle to explain the conscious self.

  4. Plant something new

    Better produce and protecting food staples at the USDA.

  5. Letters

    Finding parasitic behavior Two adjacent stories, both by Tina Hesman Saey, at first glance may appear to be unrelated but in actuality show examples of a well-known phenomenon: parasites adversely affecting the behavior of the host so that the parasite can get to its next victim. The article “Belly bacteria can boss the brain” (SN: […]

  6. SN Online

    SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC BLOGImported primate meat hosts potentially dangerous viruses. See “Bush meat can be a viral feast.” LIFE A snake senses prey’s last heartbeats. See “Boas take pulse as they snuff it out.” ATOM & COSMOS A simulation hints at why space is 3-D. Read “String theorists squeeze nine dimensions into three.” BODY […]

  7. Science Future for February 11, 2012

    February 23 As part of National Engineers Week, talk to a child or group for Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. Find resources at bit.ly/zXAZVP March 1 Last day to submit entries to the 2012 Kavli “Save the World Through Science & Engineering” video contest for grades 6–12. See bit.ly/w3iCjM

  8. Science Past from the issue of February 10, 1962

    EFFECT OF WEIGHTLESSNESS — Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr.’s experience in weightlessness during his coming orbital flight will not be long enough to cause him any undue stress such as that suffered by Cosmonaut Titov, a U.S. Air Force expert reported. “Experiments by the Russians with animals and men as well as our own experiments […]

  9. A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest by William DeBuys

    A look at how global warming could affect the American Southwest reveals a landscape in peril. Oxford Univ., 2011, 369 p., $27.95

  10. Memory: Fragments of a Modern History by Alison Winter

    With examples from police interrogators to hypnotized housewives, a historian describes changing views of memory — what it is, how it’s formed and what it means. Univ. of Chicago, 2012, 310 p., $30

  11. Pharmacologist drinks heavy water in experiment

    Self-experimenter drank heavy water, then lived a long life.

  12. Science Past for January 27, 1962

    “SPACE WHISKERS” GROWN FOR NEW SPACE MATERIALS — Microscopically small “space whiskers” are being grown by scientists at Rocketdyne, a division of North American Aviation, Inc., Canoga Park, Calif., in search of methods of producing extremely strong new space materials. The fine filament-like crystals are being grown from many materials — lead, tin, copper, graphite, […]