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Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real Today’s Silicon Valley billionaires grew up reading classic American science fiction. Now they’re trying to make it come true, embodying a dangerous political outlook Science fiction (SF) influences everything in this day and age, from the design of everyday artifacts to how we—including the current crop of 50-s
The Summer Olympics taking place in Tokyo next week will be held without spectators to reduce the risk of COVID transmission. When officials postponed the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo until 2021 last year, the announcement came amid similar decisions from professional sports leagues and regional and national stay-at-home orders. At the time, International Olympic Committee (IOC) organizers hoped
We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history. This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly. The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science. The most devastating example is hi
Somatosensory system, running from brain to hand, extends imaginatively outward and into the stick the woman holds. Luke Miller, a cognitive neuroscientist, was toying with a curtain rod in his apartment when he was struck by a strange realization. When he hit an object with the rod, even without looking, he could tell where it was making contact like it was a sensory extension of his body. “That’
The evolutionary history of humans explains why physical activity is important for brain health In the 1990s researchers announced a series of discoveries that would upend a bedrock tenet of neuroscience. For decades the mature brain was understood to be incapable of growing new neurons. Once an individual reached adulthood, the thinking went, the brain began losing neurons rather than gaining the
In a new book, an argument for giving children more of a sense of control over their lives We are raising the anxious generation, and the conversation about the causes, and the potential cures, has just begun. In The Self-Driven Child, authors William Stixrud and Ned Johnson focus on the ways that children today are being denied a sense of controlling their own lives—doing what they find meaningfu
I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy. Intelligence makes for better leaders—from undergraduates to executives to presidents—according to multiple studies. It certainly makes sense that handling a market shift or legislative logjam requires cognitive oomph. But new research on leadership suggests that, at a ce
We all like to think that being kind, responsible, and fair will lead to a happy life. But what if we’re wrong? What if nice guys really do finish last? A new study published in Nature Human Behavior suggests that those who value economic equity, at their brain’s core, are more likely to be depressed. Those who prefer everything for themselves tend to be happier. According to the model of “social
Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers Mouse experiments with the popular club drug ketamine may be skewed by the sex of the researcher performing them, a study suggests. The findings, presented on November 14 at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting in Washington DC, only deepen the mystery of how ketamine, which has powerful mood-lifting properties, interacts
A good book evokes a variety of emotions as you read. Turns out, though, that almost all novels and plays provide one of only six “emotional experiences” from beginning to end—a rags-to-riches exuberance, say, or a rise and fall of hope (below, top). Researchers at the University of Vermont graphed the happiness and sadness of words that occurred across the pages of more than 1,300 fiction works t
Do you know the two types of popularity—and which is better for you? We live in an age obsessed with popularity. Adults spend more and more of their time thinking, and behaving, like high school students. In a new book—called, yes, Popular—psychologist Mitch Prinstein explores popularity with a scientist’s eye. Prinstein, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argues that
White Nationalists Are Flocking to Genetic Ancestry Tests--with Surprising Results It was a strange moment of triumph against racism: The gun-slinging white supremacist Craig Cobb, dressed up for daytime TV in a dark suit and red tie, hearing that his DNA testing revealed his ancestry to be only “86 percent European, and … 14 percent Sub-Saharan African.” The studio audience whooped and laughed an
I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy. Last year, there was the temperature spiral. This year, it’s the temperature circle that’s making the trend of global warming crystal clear. A new video shows the rhythm of global warming for countries around the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Bars representing each
Pop psychology tells us that complaining is a sort of catharsis—that by getting our feelings out rather than bottling them up, we’ll feel better. But it turns out this is largely a myth. We all know (or even love dearly) someone who complains about everything. They complain about their partner, the weather, their boss, their weight, their internet speed, that the only thing on the menu at the loca
Earth’s Tectonic Activity May Be Crucial for Life—And Rare in Our Galaxy Our planet is in constant flux. Tectonic plates—the large slabs of rock that divide Earth’s crust so that it looks like a cracked eggshell—jostle about in fits and starts that continuously reshape our planet—and possibly foster life. These plates ram into one another, building mountains. They slide apart, giving birth to new
I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy. The birth of a child leaves its mark on the brain. Most investigations of these changes have focused on mothers, but scientists have recently begun looking more closely at fathers. Neural circuits that support parental behaviors appear more robust in moms a few weeks afte
Have you ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are contrary to their deepest held beliefs they always change their minds? Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against them. The reason is related to the worldview perceived to be under threat by the conflicting data. Creationists, for example, dispute the evidence
Students who used longhand remembered more and had a deeper understanding of the material “More is better.” From the number of gigs in a cellular data plan to the horsepower in a pickup truck, this mantra is ubiquitous in American culture. When it comes to college students, the belief that more is better may underlie their widely-held view that laptops in the classroom enhance their academic per
Much of Noam Chomsky’s revolution in linguistics—including its account of the way we learn languages—is being overturned The idea that we have brains hardwired with a mental template for learning grammar—famously espoused by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—has dominated linguistics for almost half a century. Recently, though, cognitive scientists and linguists have abando
I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy. I had long wanted to meet Edward R. Tufte--the man the New York Times called "the da Vinci of data" because of his concisely written and artfully illustrated books on the visual display of data--and invite him to speak at the Skeptics Society science lecture series that I
New research suggests the disorder often looks different in females, many of whom are being misdiagnosed and missing out on the support they need When Frances was an infant, she was late to babble, walk and talk. She was three before she would respond to her own name. Although there were hints that something was unusual about her development, the last thing her parents suspected was autism. “She w
High-profile physicists and philosophers gathered to debate whether we are real or virtual—and what it means either way NEW YORK—If you, me and every person and thing in the cosmos were actually characters in some giant computer game, we would not necessarily know it. The idea that the universe is a simulation sounds more like the plot of “The Matrix,” but it is also a legitimate scientific hypoth
A Japanese mathematician claims to have solved one of the most important problems in his field. The trouble is, hardly anyone can work out whether he's right Sometime on the morning of August 30 2012, Shinichi Mochizuki quietly posted four papers on his website. The papers were huge—more than 500 pages in all—packed densely with symbols, and the culmination of more than a decade of solitary work.
Two years in, a $1-billion-plus effort to simulate the human brain is in disarray. Was it poor management, or is something fundamentally wrong with Big Science? For decades Henry Markram has dreamed of reverse engineering the human brain. In 1994, as a postdoctoral researcher then at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, he became the first scientist to “patch” two
From helpless damsel to powerful heroine, but still hypersexualized What do you want to be when you grow up? When pondering this question, most kids have given at least passing consideration to one fantastical if improbable calling: superhero. There is an understandable allure to the superhero position — wearing a special uniform (possibly with powerful accessories), saving the world from evil,
By Janice Neumann (Reuters Health) - Moderate-intensity exercise, or even just walking, can improve quality of life for depressed middle-aged women, a large Australian study suggests. By Janice Neumann (Reuters Health) - Moderate-intensity exercise, or even just walking, can improve quality of life for depressed middle-aged women, a large Australian study suggests. Women who averaged 150 minutes o
HINT: Don't tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of research shows that a focus on “process”—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents told him he had a speci
Twitter to Release All Tweets to Scientists: A Trove of Billions of Tweets Will Be a Research Boon and An Ethical Dilemma Five hundred million tweets are broadcast worldwide every day on Twitter. With so many details about personal lives, the social media site is a data trove for scientists looking to find patterns in human behaviors, tease out risk factors for health conditions and track the spre
The disorder is complex and has so far eluded a simple biological explanation A commercial sponsored by Pfizer, the drug company that manufactures the antidepressant Zoloft, asserts, “While the cause [of depression] is unknown, depression may be related to an imbalance of natural chemicals between nerve cells in the brain. Prescription Zoloft works to correct this imbalance.” Using advertisements
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