The world population will hit 7 billion on Halloween this year, according to a guesstimate from the United Nations. So, should you be scared?
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently observed two clusters full of massive stars that appear to be in the early stages of merging. The clusters are located some 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way. What at first was thought to be only one cluster in…
In his latest book The Moral Molecule, neuroeconomist Paul Zak describes oxytocin’s role in trust, bonding and even virtuous behavior. New Scientist caught up with him about avoiding the term “the cuddle chemical” and trying not to make a bride faint on her wedding day. Author Metanexus Editors
If you have an iPad, you can take a closer look at one of history’s greatest minds. The National Museum of Health & Medicine, Chicago released an app that displays slides of Albert Einstein’s brain. The app is for sale to researchers and curious iPad users alike, and all profits are going to the Chicago…
For decades, the field of regenerative medicine has been promising a future of ready-made replacement organs — livers, kidneys, even hearts — built in the laboratory. For the most part that future has remained a science-fiction fantasy. Now, however, researchers like Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm are building organs with a…
Kay Steiger and Scott Zeger talk about ways college professors could make introductory science classes less off-putting and encourage more people to major in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Matthew Yglesias suggests we take a deeper step back and ask whether STEM faculties actually want more people to major in their fields. Author…
The idea that war is obsolescent may seem preposterously utopian. Aren’t we facing an endless war on terror, a clash of civilizations, the menace of nuclear rogue states? Isn’t war in our genes, something that will always be with us? The theory that war is becoming passé gained traction in the late 1980s, when scholars…