SSS 2010-07-16

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Steve Mirsky. Got a minute？ Whaddya get when you cross a planet with a comet? Well, HD 209458b looks like a candidate. Its a gas giant planet also called Osiris, and its orbiting so close to its st

SSS 2010-07-19

New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte had to leave Sundays game against Tampa in the third inning because of a strained groin. He thus slightly beat the odds. Because his injury happened after the All-Star Game, which was last Tuesday. And a new stu

SSS 2010-07-20

A couple of studies on perception. First, theres now visual data to back up the idea that everything looks kinda gray when you feel blue. Researchers examined how the retina responds to different black-and-white contrast situations. They did the test

SSS 2010-08-02

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will take just a minute. As many of us broil in August heat, the Mars Rover Spirit is hunkered down to survive a far more brutal seasona Martian winter. Spirits been on Mars sinc

SSS 2010-08-03

Why arent there more women physicists, and in senior positions? One factor may be unconscious biases that could keep women physicists from advancingand may even prevent women from going into physics in the first place. Amy Bug, a physicist at Swarthm

SSS 2010-08-04

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Adam Hinterthuer. Got a minute？ Heres a possible blood pressure remedy. But its only for those who can stand the heat. Its capsaicin, the active ingredient in peppers like habaneros that should pro

SSS 2010-08-05

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute Declining frog populations are considered an indicator of environmental damage. But new research finds that frogs might be doing even worse than we thou

SSS 2010-08-06

One of the concerns about working with genetically modified crops has been that vegetation growing in agricultural fields might escape out into the world. Now, for the first time in the U.S., researchers report a large population of GM crops beyond t

SSS 2010-08-09

Blue whales off the California coast make calls that, sped up 10 times, sound like (sound of two-part call). The original is a wall-rattling frequency too low for us to hear. Scientists analyzed around 2,500 of those calls, and found that the second

SSS 2010-08-10

Thats what it might sound like if I had a tongue stud, hitting my teeth. Maybe youve seen people with studs in their tongue clicking it up against their front teeth, a move known as playing. But it turns out that the habit may destroy some smiles. Un

SSS 2010-08-11

Theres nothing like a good steak. And our Australopithecus afarensis ancestors apparently felt the same way. Because new discoveries from Ethiopia show that what was likely the species of the famous fossil Lucy used stone tools to butcher meat from b

SSS 2010-07-14

Doctors like to think that theyll turn in colleagues who are doing a particularly bad job. But its not so straightforward when physicians are faced with such a colleague, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Associati

SSS 2010-12-10

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. 'Tis the season when many of us go on a seafood diet: we see food and we eat it. But if you want to avoid packing on the pounds, a new study suggests tha

SSS 2010-12-13

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Galileo first spotted Saturn's rings 400 years ago. But since then, scientists have been stumped about how they got there. Because the rings are almost pure wa

SSS 2010-10-14

That 80s power ballad had it all wrong. Love may keep you from hurting. Two researcherspain specialist Sean Mackey at Stanford and love specialist Arthur Aron at S.U.N.Y. Stony Brookmet at a neuroscience conference. They realized they were talking ab

SSS 2010-10-15

Many of our medicines originate in plants. But were not the only ones who tap into nature.Theres increasing evidence that some animals seek out specific plants for their medicinal qualities. A new study shows that monarch butterflies may be among the

SSS 2010-10-18

A noisy restaurant can distract you from your dinner conversation. But all that clatter may also drown out the taste of your food, making it more bland. That's according to a study in the journal Food Quality and Preference. Researchers recruited 48

SSS 2010-10-19

We tend to think of cavemen as pretty serious carnivores, hunting game and then roasting the yummy bits over a roaring campfire. But scientists just reported discovering traces of starch on some ancient stone tools. Which suggests that there were pro

SSS 2010-11-01

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. If youre like me, you get a jolt of energy from socializing, and hanging out with large groups of friends, because were extroverts. But if were too socia

SSS 2010-11-02

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Toss a piece of leaf onto a spider web. The spider is indifferent. Because leaves don't squirm like captured flies. But Australia's assassin bug turns the tabl