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Science at the Olympics: Team Science
The Olympics is a vast experiment in human performance, sport technology and global travel. Nature meets some of the scientists behind the scenes.
Greece, the Global Economy, and Big History
ByEditorWatching the sunset from the cliffs of the Santorini caldera attracts tourists from all over the world, I recently discovered on a family sailing trip in the Greek Islands. The Cyclades archipelago is one of the cradles of human civilization, dating back 6,000 years, when late Neolithic and early Bronze Age communities thrived here. They…
That Elastic Term
Forty years after C.S. Holling gave academic status to the word “resilience,” the concept has found a home in several different disciplines. From ecology, where Holling first defined resilience in 1973 as the measure of a system’s ability to maintain its operational integrity, the term is now cropping up frequently in economics, psychiatry, robotics, medicine,…
New Burst of Energy Could Bring Cold Fusion to Front Burner
After decades of wandering in the scientific wilderness, cold fusion may be returning to the land of the acceptable. It’s been more than 20 years since esteemed researchers Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann electrified the world with news that they’d observed low-energy nuclear reactions at the atomic level that generated excess heat, holding out the…
Thieving Rodents Are Rainforest Saviors
The thieving habits of rodents have emerged as an unlikely salvation of tropical forests, research suggests. Massive mammals known as gomphotheres once ranged the Americas, distributing big tree seeds as they roamed. But they are extinct, and it has not been clear what is spreading seeds now. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,…
Race and Religion at the Ballot Box
The color of a candidate’s skin failed to sway voters to depress the lever for either Obama or McCain in the 2008 election, immediate analyses of that contest seemed to suggest. Some pundits hailed it as the first postracial election. But a closer look after the election has revealed a much more nuanced picture of…