Get Some Perspective on Swine Flu
Panic seems to be spreading faster than the H1N1 (swine) flu. Egypt proposed killing all of the pigs in the country. China is quarantining Mexican nationals without any sign that they might be sick. The Vice President warned against traveling in confined spaces, like the subway. Frightened fliers k...
May 05, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Playing Pandemic, the Board Game
Sunday afternoon, some friends and I sat down to play Pandemic, the board game. It seemed appropriate, since we had just been discussing the swine flu outbreak. Pandemic is a cooperative board game in which 2 to 4 people work together to cure four diseases before it’s too late. There is no winner—e...
April 29, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Royals Prove Inbreeding Is a Bad Idea
Those jokes about inbred royals might have some basis in fact, according to a new study in the journal PLOS One .The Hapsburg dynasty ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, reigning over the height of the Spanish empire. The dynasty ended when the last king, Charles II, who suffered physical and mental dis...
April 16, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week—Alabama Science Class, 1939
I was nosing through the Library of Congress’s collection of photographs earlier this week when I came upon this one labeled “Student in science class. Gee's Bend, Alabama.” It was taken in May 1939 by Marion Post Wolcott, who documented poverty during the Great Depression for the Farm Security Adm...
April 03, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Video Games Improve Your Vision
Yes, you read that headline right. Video games, specifically first-person shooter games, train your brain and help you see better.Twenty-two lucky students and staff at the University of Rochester participated in this new study, the results of which were published online this week by Nature Neurosc...
March 31, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Advice for Dealing With Recession-Related Losses
You know that feeling you had when you received that last statement from your 401(k)? Maybe it was like you ate something bad at lunch or you felt a bit lightheaded. Losses like the ones we’re now all experiencing actually hurt, according to a new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy ...
March 17, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Evolution in Black and White
The alternative color forms of some animals are providing new insights into how animals adapt and evolve
February 10, 2009 |
By Sean B. Carroll
Picture of the Week—Optical Illusion
The image above is not an animation. It’s just a static picture. But the movement, at least to your visual system, is real, conclude a group of researchers in Japan in their recent study in the Journal of Vision. (The journal seems to have a yen for optical illusions; just take a look at their onl...
February 06, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Requiem for the Redhead
The next great extinction—Carrot Tops
February 2009 |
By Patricia McNamee Rosenberg
Lincoln vs. Darwin (Part 3 of 4)
Last week we asked: Who was more important, Abraham Lincoln or Charles Darwin? T.A. Frail took up the fight for Lincoln, and Laura Helmuth argued for Darwin. Today, senior editor Mark Strauss, the grand organizer of all of our recent Lincoln coverage in the magazine, takes the helm.Please add your ...
January 26, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
How Many Ugandan Mountain Gorillas?
Mountain gorillas are rare and endangered, and they have the misfortune to live in a part of the world wracked by human violence. In the magazine in 2007, we focused on the gorillas of Congo and Rwanda, giving little attention to the 350 living in neighboring Uganda. But the Ugandan gorillas may no...
January 22, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
This is Your Brain…In Cake
I’ve been waiting for Cake Wrecks to feature something science-y, and I’m not disappointed in Thursday’s post, They Think They’re Organic , which features a brain, a kidney, a heart and an entire digestive tract, all made out of cake. (Much more impressive than the dinosaur cakes.)The brain, as you...
January 17, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
One Woman's Journey to Save Child Slaves
Former child prostitute Somaly Mam has made it her mission to rescue victims of sex slavery throughout the world
January 12, 2009 |
By Anika Gupta
Why Golfers Might Need Earplugs
The golf course would seem to be a quiet and peaceful place, so why did an audiologist recommend that some golfers wear earplugs?A new report in the British Medical Journal from a group of doctors in England claims that the new generation of thin-faced titanium drivers create such a loud noise--up ...
January 06, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
History of the Hysterical Man
Doctors once thought that only women suffered from hysteria, but a medical historian says that men were always just as susceptible
January 05, 2009 |
By Abigail Tucker
Smithsonian Notable Books for Children 2008
Surprising, inspiring and outstanding titles for youngsters and the grownups that read to them
December 19, 2008 |
By Kathleen Burke
The Language of Drunkenness
How often do you get drunk? Intoxicated? Inebriated? Tanked? Hammered? Wasted? Plastered? Sloshed? Tipsy? Buzzed?Does your answer change depending on the word I use? And if I asked you to define each term, would your definitions be the same as mine?In daily life, these nuances of language don’t rea...
December 16, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
R.I.P., H.M., Memory's Most Famous Initials
The most famous non-name in psychology died this week. The man was identified in scientific papers and Psych 101 textbooks by his initials only: H.M.H.M. had a rare and strange experience of the world: he could form no new memories after 1953. He had mostly normal memories of whatever happened befo...
December 05, 2008 |
By Laura Helmuth
Facial Expressions Electrified
Dick Conniff is a frequent contributor to Smithsonian magazine (see his story in the June issue about the productive rivalry between Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace) who writes the "Strange Behaviors" blog.Yesterday he posted a video from an artist who... well, you just have to see it, and...
December 04, 2008 |
By Laura Helmuth
