SSS 2011-12-22

This is Scientific American's sixty Science. I'm Sophie Bushwick. Got a minute. Several for the species can distinguish between two and five bananas, but what's the exceptional the primates they can't grasp the new American rules, what let they range

SSS 2011-01-13

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Christie Nicholson. Got a minute? Performance anxiety can be crippling. Entertainers who suffer from it come up with creative defenses. Bono has his purple shades. The indie rock singer Cat Power fac

SSS 2011-01-12

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. Remember affirmations? Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit, people like me. Well, if Stuart Smalley's shot-in-the-arm makes you smile

SSS 2011-01-10

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? The Apollo moon missions ended almost 40 years ago. But for lunar scientists, they're gifts that keep on giving. Researchers studying rocks brought back by ast

SSS 2011-01-06

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science, Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. We produce tears in response to insults to the eyesthe sting of onion fumes, a tiny insect that flew into your cornea. But we also produce emotional tear

SSS 2011-01-05

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. January often gets people thinking about what they've accomplished over the past 12 months. This year, it got the editors of the medical journal the Lanc

SSS 2011-01-04

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Or so it may seem, because many social networks eventually evolve into one of just two states. We either all get along, o

SSS 2011-01-03

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky. Got a minute? Did you hoist a few on New Year's? Of course, getting together with friends over a few adult beverages has a long history. Here's the University of Cincinnati's Kathleen

SSS 2011-01-11

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Thats a sound that inspires fear around the world: the dentists drill. And fear of that sound itself could play a part in keeping some people from gettin

SSS 2011-03-17

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Steve Mirsky. Thisll just take a minute. We are definitely in uncharted waters, particularly given that the spent fuel pool appears to either not have water or have very little water. Its completely

SSS 2011-03-04

Every villain has his Achilles' heel. And microscopic scoundrels are no exception. The challenge for those who wish to ward off microbial bad guys is to identify that weak spot. Now, scientists studying the toxoplasmosis parasite think they've done j

SSS 2011-03-08

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Wine can help keep conversation flowing at a dinner party. And now it looks like that wine may aid in materials science as well. Japanese researchers dis

SSS 2011-03-09

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. The numbers of fish and other ocean life have dropped dramatically in the past few decades. That's because of commercial overfishing, and something cal

SSS 2011-03-10

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? During the 2008 presidential election, the Internet became a giant rumor mill. For example, there were the viral e-mails claiming Barack Obama's birth certific

SSS 2011-03-11

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Elephants are smart, social animals. And now we know that they can organize themselves into teams to accomplish tasks. A research team that included re

SSS 2011-03-14

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky. This will just take a minute. The type of accident that is occurring in Japan is known as the station blackout: loss of off-site AC powerpower lines are downand then a subsequent fail

SSS 2011-03-15

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Imagine life without fire. A lot of huddling for warmth. The consensus was that humans could make and control fire when they first migrated north to cold

SSS 2011-03-16

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm John Rennie. Got a minute? Congress has finally acted on global warmingby denying it exists. It's in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature's 1897 attempt to redefine the va

SSS 2011-03-18

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky. Got a minute? Wanna get out of the hospital alive? Well, the nursing staff has a lot to do with it. Now a study finds that a patients risk of dying goes up along with the number of wo

SSS 2011-03-21

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Mark Twain called it the most delicious fruit known to men. He was talking about the cherimoya. If you never heard of it, there's good reason. It has a