Category: Quantum Stuff

Bush fire season is underway again in Australia, where summer has just kicked off. Yet the country is still recovering from record-breaking wildfires two years ago that killed at least 33 people, destroyed thousands of homes and burned more than 65,000 square miles of land. How quickly the natural landscape recovers depends on the climate… Continue reading Fires Doubled Australia’s Carbon Emissions—Ecosystems May Never Soak It Back Up

I sometimes worry that many who would enjoy a scientific career are put off by a narrow and outdated conception of what’s involved. The word “scientist” still conjures up an unworldly image of an Einstein lookalike (male and elderly) or else a youthful geek. There’s still too little racial and gender diversity among scientists. But… Continue reading Lessons for a Young Scientist

Doctors have transplanted the heart from a genetically modified pig into the chest of a man from Maryland in a last-ditch effort to save his life. The first-of-its-kind surgery is being hailed as a major step forward in the decades-long effort to successfully transplant animal organs into humans.  Although it’s been tried before—one of the… Continue reading Surgeons Transplant Pig’s Heart into Dying Human Patient in a First

Richard Leakey, paleoanthropologist, conservationist and Kenyan political leader, died January 2 at his home near Nairobi. His expeditions discovered hundreds of hominin fossils, leading Fred Spoor, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, to tell me his findings were “a most extensive and diverse fossil record of early human evolution.”* Other scientists, conservationists,… Continue reading Richard Leakey’s Legacy in Science, Conservation and Politics

Explore It’s 2050. The world population has increased by 2.3 billion to 9.9 billion. Demand for food has risen 70 to 100 percent but a warming planet, extreme weather, and a decrease in arable land is threatening food security. Luckily, farmers can grow crops more densely, increasing yield from smaller plots of available agricultural land.… Continue reading Plants Fight for Their Lives

A group of scientists may have stumbled upon a radical new way to do cosmology. Cosmologists usually determine the composition of the universe by observing as much of it as possible. But these researchers have found that a machine learning algorithm can scrutinize a single simulated galaxy and predict the overall makeup of the digital… Continue reading Any Single Galaxy Reveals the Composition of an Entire Universe

Two years ago, I decided to do nothing. Not for the rest of my life, of course—for two hours. As a neuroscientist, I was already familiar with the evidence that mindfulness meditation, or attending to the present moment, is beneficial for stress and anxiety. So I had been meditating regularly for about a half a… Continue reading My Out-of-Body Experience

Researchers have developed a lightweight, reusable sensor that clips onto a mask to monitor how well it’s working. The device, called FaceBit, senses leaks and records wear time while continuously measuring a wearer’s heart and breathing rate. Its developers hope it will aid research and help health care workers and others who wear face coverings… Continue reading New Sensor Tells You How Well Your Mask Is Working

Giggling, sneaky, carrion-scavenging—and good for public health? Hyenas around the Ethiopian city of Mekelle often dine on livestock carcasses. In the process, a new study suggests, they may prevent infections of anthrax and bovine tuberculosis in nearby humans and animals. More than 300,000 people live in Mekelle, along with more than 100,000 head of livestock,… Continue reading Hungry Hyenas Can Help Human Health

You’re confronting a spider, up close, womano-a-womano. The tiny creature rears back on its hindmost legs and assumes a threatening posture, ridiculous given that you could easily squash it with your shoe. Yet everyone understands the gesture, even though to locate the most recent common ancestor shared by the two of you, you’d have to… Continue reading The Wild World of Threats