David Gelernter, a pioneering computer scientist, foresaw the modern internet but thinks computers are still too hard to use
In the clammy depths of a southern Illinois coal mine lies the largest fossil forest ever discovered, at least 50 times as extensive as the previous contender. Scientists are exploring dripping passages by the light of headlamps, mapping out an ecosystem from 307 million years ago, just before the world’s first great forests were wiped…
It’s long been known that children in poorer neighborhoods are more likely to be exposed to lead, industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust and other contaminants. Now, scientists are beginning to suspect that low-income children aren’t just more exposed – they actually may be more biologically susceptible to them, even at low levels. A growing body of…
A New York Medical College developmental biologist whose life’s work has supported the theory of evolution has developed a concept that dramatically alters one of its basic assumptions—that survival is based on a change’s functional advantage if it is to persist. Stuart A. Newman, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and anatomy, offers an alternative model…
From a sufferer’s perspective, anxiety is not epochal. It is always and absolutely personal. “The Age of Anxiety” is a phrase that has been used to characterize the consciousness of our era, the awareness of everything perilous about the modern world: the degradation of the environment, nuclear energy, religious fundamentalism, threats to privacy and the…
Biologists are well-known for using lab rats in experiments, but a few may now have the chance to work with rats in a unique way. A team of engineers has set up a system that lets lab rats control a human-shaped avatar in a virtual environment, while humans control a rat-size robot inside the rat’s…
Can crabs feel pain? New research on the clawed crustaceans suggests the answer is yes. A group of UK researchers came to this conclusion by examining the reactions of common shore crabs to mild electric shocks in a study released today in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The key to their finding is the distinction…