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 2011-01-14

We Americans love our fast food. And a new study shows that a little thing like a nutrition label is not gonna stop us when we want a breakfast burrito. In January 2009 King County, Washington imposed mandatory menu labeling on all restaurant chains

SSS 2011-01-17

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Many people love what they consider a suntan's healthy glow. But the color you get from eating vegetables might be the most attractive glow of all. Tha

SSS 2011-01-18

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Steve Mirsky. Got a minute? Its a now-they-know-how-many-holes-it-takes-to-fill-the-Albert-Hall situation, because researchers have measured the actual blood alcohol level of fans leaving professiona

SSS 2011-01-19

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. It's one of the oldest moves in teen dating. Head to a scary movie. As soon as the scary music kicks in, your date cuddles closer for comfort. Well, so

SSS 2011-01-31

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Can we be too clean? According to what's called the hygiene hypothesis, yes. Without being challenged as kids, our immune systems don't flourish. Scien

SSS 2011-01-28

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm John Rennie. Got a minute? High school students flunking biology might take some consolation in knowing that most of their teachers would be, too. So suggests a commentary in the January 28th issue

SSS 2011-01-27

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Steve Mirsky. Got a minute? Generations of American children have been told, Eat your broccoli! And for decades, researchers have known that broccoli and related vegetables like cauliflower and water

SSS 2011-01-25

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. The Chesapeake Bay could get helped by a new antipollution expert: farmed oysters. For decades, the Chesapeake has been plagued by excess nutrients, such

SSS 2011-01-24

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm John Matson. Got a minute? In a laboratory vault outside Paris is a small cylinder of platinumiridium alloy that serves as the standard for all mass measurements worldwide. By an 1889 international

SSS 2011-01-21

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Steve Mirsky. Got a minute? I just read Bill Carters book The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy. Its a good look at issues in organizational psychology, because it de

SSS 2011-01-20

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Ever been running the treadmill, exhausted, ready to quitbut you're at the 2.9 mile mark, so you run that last 10th to make it an even three? Why do you do it? W

SSS 2011-01-26

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Living in the city, you can't escape traffic noise. But it's not just a nuisance. If you're over 65, the noise might be a risk to your health, tooby increasing