The pursuit of knowledge is now a global enterprise. Scientific American and Nature have teamed up on this special report on how this trend is changing the way science is done, and how it informs the world.
The primates have an altruistic ‘tally chart’ that keeps track of social rewards and gifts.
Scientists who found well preserved woolly mammoth remains in a remote part of Russia hope they might contain the necessary material to clone the long extinct beast. The Russian-led international team found the remains, including fur and bone marrow, with some cell nuclei intact, in the Ust-Yansk area of the Yakutia region on Russia’s Arctic…
Atheists and other religious skeptics suffer persecution or discrimination in many parts of the world and in at least seven countries can be executed if their beliefs become known, according to a new report. The study, from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), showed that “unbelievers” in Islamic countries face the most severe —…
The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics. The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include…
With the search for the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, apparently reaching its long-anticipated-and-finally-successful conclusion, anticipation of the next set of discoveries is growing. Recently the Stanford campus hosted a smallish gathering celebrating the 60th birthday of Savas Dimopoulos, justly acclaimed by each of the attendees as…
After nearly a full term in office, fewer than half (49%) of voters correctly identify Obama as Christian. Around 1-in-5 (17%) voters continue to incorrectly say that Obama is a Muslim, up from 12% in 2008. Most strikingly, 31% of voters say they are unsure of his religious beliefs. Other questions confirm this identification problem:…