SSS 2012-04-30

This is Scientific American 60 Second Science, I am Steve Mursky, Got a minute? Obese people have higher risks for diabetes, heart disease, arthritisand injuries in car accidents? Yes, in part because theyre far less likely to wear a seat belt. Thats

SSS 2012-04-26

Does your puppy turn his nose up at his own chowbecause he wants some of whatever it is that youre having? A new study finds that, when it comes to food, dogs recognize human social signals about what's good. The work is in the journal Public Library

SSS 2012-07-30

The London Olympics are about to begin, and spectators will again be riveted by feats that would have been impossible when the modern Olympics began in 1894. Jaw-dropping records are attainable in part because of the advances in materials science. Ne

SSS 2012-01-04

Can you tell the difference between Modern Violin and Tecra craft by Italian masters .Don't feel so bad, expert players can't do it either. In double blind test, 21 experienced violinists unable to tell difference between rare old instruments and new

SSS 2012-07-27

The London Olympics are about to begin,and spectator will again be revited by feats that would've been imposibily when the modern Olympics began in 1986. Jaw-dropping records are attainable in part because of advances in material science. New materia

SSS 2012-07-20

You might picture Neanderthal cavemen gnaw on bones around campfire. Which wouldnt be inaccurate. But Neanderthal mayhave also dieted on roasted vegetables and known a bit about medicinal plants,too. So says a study in a journal N, the science of nat

SSS 2012-08-17

This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Evelyn Lamb. Got a minute? Big city dwellers who need a car for less than a day can rent Zipcars by the hour. Zipcar's ads emphasize environmentalism and community. But a recent study shows most

SSS 2012-08-15

This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Ian Chant. Got a minute? Having a kid changes everything from your sleep schedule to the statues of that formerly spare room. The stable of bacteria that living in women's gut is also transformed

SSS 2012-08-14

Five-hundred years ago, a 15-year-old Incan girl was sacrificed, along with two other children. Her mummy has now revealed that she had an active lung infection at her death. Because a technique called shotgun proteomics has been used to determine wh

SSS 2012-01-12

If a country wants keep its nuclear bomb tests secret, it'll probably do it deep underground. But, even if you bury the bomb, some clues are reached the surface. So says the study in journal Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists analyzed the radar

SSS 2010-10-26

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. The racks leading up to the checkout line are prime real estate for impulse buys. Merchandise near the register moves, whether it's a magazine, a pack of

SSS 2010-10-29

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Adam Hinterthuer. Got a minute? If there's a line in Vegas on the odds of life on another planet, now might be a good time to place a wager. A study in the journal Science examined 166 Sun-sized star

SSS 2010-10-27

On October 9th, we reported that cats born deaf develop enhanced vision. Now researchers find that blind people perceive touch faster than do those with sight. The work is in the Journal of Neuroscience. Volunteers who were sighted or who had varying

SSS 2010-11-23

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. The elderly suffer from an alarming epidemic. A third of people over 65 fall at least once a year. Half of those fall more frequently. Exercise can help,

SSS 2010-12-09

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Imagine climbing diamond mountains, or hiking around the graphite shores of a lake of tar. Sound a little sci-fi? Well a new discovery suggests planets like that

SSS 2010-11-17

We humans are pretty good at communicating with sounds other than words. But how much of this is hard-wired, and how much do we pick up from others? To find out, researchers recorded the nonverbal sounds of people born deaf, as they responded to a ra

SSS 2010-11-05

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Steve Mirsky. Got a minute? Five very old galaxies are now known to astrophysicists, thanks to Albert Einstein. A century ago, Einstein predicted an effect called cosmic gravitational lensing. Pictur

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 2010-10-14

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 2010-10-07

The clues are adding up to give a picture of a distant Martian past, when the planet had a thick atmosphere that was warm enough for water to stream on the surface. But now the waters gone, and the atmosphere is so thin that any water would boil away