583 articles on Science

  • Amazing Alex: Hands-On with Rovio's Newest Game That Isn't Angry Birds
    Raise your hand if you're sick of Angry Birds. Yeah, we thought so. Now that Rovio has saturated the market with Angry Birds-branded games, toys, clothing and even fruit snacks, the developer has set its sights on a boy named Alex and his Rube Goldberg-esque shenanigans.
    07.13.12
  • New Federal Ban on Synthetic Drugs Already Obsolete
    A federal ban on synthetic drugs, signed into law by President Obama on July 9, was obsolete before the ink of his signature dried. Drug formulations not covered by the law's language are already on sale. If synthetics are supposed to be part of the War on Drugs, then this battle may already be lost.
    07.12.12
  • Fin-de-sie¿cle Physics and the Turmoil of Scientific Knowledge
    While science proceeds in understanding our world, it's not always a path of unremitting forward progress. Sometimes, there are some missteps. The regularities behind how knowledge grows and changes is discussed in my upcoming book The Half-Life of Facts, but doing a deep dive into a single time period in order to understand how this ...
    07.12.12
  • Watch Your Back, CERN! Designer Builds Particle Accelerator in His Garage
    CERN's Large Hadron Collider is a study in superlatives: the world's largest particle accelerator, housing some of the coldest places in the universe, causes incredibly powerful beams to collide, giving us a glimpse into the nature of the smallest particles. It takes a special kind of designer to see it and think, "I wonder if I could make a home version?"
    07.11.12
  • Doubt Is Good for Science, But Bad for PR
    The world appears suddenly engulfed in an epidemic of uncertainty. Uncertainty plagues banks and the economy, the Middle East, elections in the U.S. and other countries, the Euro, and of course the weather. But now it has cropped up in a most unexpected place: science.
    07.11.12
  • Global Warming Linked to 2011 Weather Extremes
    A first attempt to dissect climate and weather extremes only months after they happen is confirming more leisurely analyses of earlier heat waves, droughts, and flooding. Human-induced global warming is indeed increasing the chances that Texas will be hit with record heat and dryness or that the United Kingdom will have an unusually mild winter.
    07.11.12
  • Every Girl Should Go To The Science Fair
    A couple of weeks ago, our family's main babysitter, an undergraduate chemistry major, made a depressing -- and depressingly accurate -- observation: She has several female friends who are chemistry majors, all of whom are smart and technically proficient and genuinely interested in the subject. But when she goes to research-intensive summer programs, and meets graduate students from a variety of institutions, the women aren't there anymore.
    07.11.12
  • Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!
    I was wearing my newest Tesla t-shirt when a guy on the street stopped me to say "Tesla? Didn't he invent, like, everything?" Yes. Yes, he did. Today marks Tesla's birthday. Please join me today in celebrating the life of Nikola Tesla! Alright class, gather around as we go over some of his many many accomplishments and then I'll give you some assigned reading to take home.
    07.10.12
  • Programmable Cardboard Robotic Arm Hits Kickstarter
    Ken Ihara got started playing with robots during his time as an assistant in the Harvard Robotics Lab. Ken recently started a kickstarter for his latest creation The Cardboard Robotic Arm. With a reach just shy of six feet this is a work of cardboard engineering art.
    07.10.12
  • Traditional Sexual Values Challenged in Classic Animal Study
    From peacock tails to stag antlers, the idea that animal evolution is shaped by males boasting and fighting to win female favor is a central biological dogma. Under closer scrutiny, however, the dogma doesn't seem to hold. A new replication of a foundational mid-20th century mate-choice study by English geneticist Angus Bateman came to very different conclusions than the original.
    07.09.12
  • Observation Deck: Science vs. Politics Edition
    Which is more important: The presidential election or the discovery of the Higgs boson? I suppose the answer depends on what we mean by "important," and individual temperament. In this week's Observation Deck, I try to figure out the answer, by way of some thinking about the differences between science journalism and political journalism as I've practiced them.
    07.09.12
  • NASA's New (Astronaut-Carrying) Spacecraft Is Retro-Modern
    This week at Cape Canaveral -- not far from where NASA launched the first American into space 41 years ago, and the last Americans one year ago -- the space agency welcomed its next generation of manned spacecraft. The first space-bound Orion capsule arrived in Florida, where final construction will take place before its first test flight planned for 2014.
    07.05.12
  • What if Steve Jobs Had Discovered the Higgs Boson?
    Ever wonder what Steve Jobs would have done if he'd gotten into experimental physics? When CERN scientists announced that they'd probably found the Higgs boson, they got more than their fair share of smack talk from the design community for presenting their discovery in Comic Sans. Even the font's creator, Vincent Connare, wasn't impressed.
    07.05.12
  • What Finding the Higgs Boson Means
    There has been a rise in speculation from the international physics community about the contents of a press conference that has been called by scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), to be held at 9am Geneva time (3am EST) on July 4, 2012. Physicists expect that the announcement will be positive proof of the Higgs boson particle and a successful mission for the team. The anticipation reached a frenzied state yesterday when scientists from the Tevatron at Fermilab in Illinois announced that they had found significant supporting evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson.
    07.03.12
  • Aim High: 10 of the World's Most Impressive Paper Planes
    Back in elementary school, paper planes were a distraction. They were the class clown¿s preferred weapon and the bane of teachers everywhere. But some creators took their school-time shenanigans to the pro level, becoming aeronautical engineers, origami artists, world champions, and record setters. From the biggest to the trickiest to the most intricately designed, here are 10 of the most impressive paper planes on the planet.
    07.03.12
  • Pentagon's Brain-Powered Videogames Might Treat PTSD
    Soldiers and veterans looking to alleviate the devastating symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder might soon have a new way to help themselves. Strangely, it involves using their gray matter to control a videogame.
    07.03.12
  • The Chemistry of Fireworks
    My family loves going to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July. Who doesn't? And our friends at ByteSize Science have a new video explaining how all those different colors are produced. (Did you know they put in extra stuff to make the boom?) The video features a demonstration by fireworks expert John A. Conkling, of Washington College in Maryland, who literally wrote the book on The Chemistry of Pyrotechnics. ByteSize Science is produced by the American Chemical Society.
    07.03.12
  • News Round-Up: Meat, Superbugs, Denmark And Big Food
    I was off-line for a week with family issues, and while I was gone, news broke out. (It senses your absence, news does. This is the real reason why coups and major foodborne outbreaks happen in August.) So while I dive into the bigger stories that seem to be happening -- and get some fun summer ...
    07.02.12


Services

Subscription: Subscribe | Give a Gift | Renew | International | Questions | Change Address
Quick Links: Contact Us | Login/RegisterLogout | Newsletter | RSS Feeds | Tech Jobs | Wired Mobile | FAQ | Sitemap