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.
A series of bitter disagreements between scientists and policy-makers has prompted a group of researchers to create a list of 40 “key unanswered questions” in an attempt to ease tensions by setting an agenda for future work. Led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, U.K., the group — comprising more than 50 scientists, policy…
It turns out that the use of electric vehicles may not be that clean after all, particularly in the world’s most populated country, China. In a recent study, Christopher Cherry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of Tennessee, and his colleagues found that in terms of air pollution, electric vehicles were…
Scientists measuring the sun were shocked to find it’s the most perfectly round natural object in the universe. Until now experts have always assumed that the sun bulged a bit around the middle – making it very slightly flying-saucer shaped. But the bulge is so small that if the sun was the size of a…
Last September, a few hundred scientists, engineers and space enthusiasts gathered at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Houston for the second public meeting of 100 Year Starship. The group is run by former astronaut Mae Jemison and funded by DARPA. Its mission is to “make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system to…
From John Horgan’s Cross-Check blog at SciAm: A professor at Caltech, Christof Koch helped popularize consciousness as a topic for serious scientific investigation—instead of windy philosophical supposition—through his collaboration with the great Francis Crick, who had already cracked the genetic code and now wanted to solve the riddle of mind as well. In 1994 Koch outlined…
The Olympic Games are a reminder that — as in science — competitiveness must be tempered with cooperation to achieve social development.