SSS 2008-01-30

This is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. Im Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. Every expecting mother gets asked the question: boy or girl? For mammals like us, its an easy call. Two X chromosomes you get pink booties. X and a Y you g

SSS 2010-01-25

They say that men dont like to ask for directions. Well, that reluctance to seek expert advice may extend to the shopping cart. Because a study in the Journal of Consumer Marketing finds that guys also will likely avoid asking salespeople for suggest

SSS 2010-01-20

Ever wonder what your French fries were fried in? Like bumbling burglars who leave fingerprints at a crime scene, cooking oils leave their own clues. And by measuring the carbon isotopes in French fries, University of Hawaii researchers found that on

SSS 2009-01-30

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. You probably remember exactly what you were doing when you first heard the news on 9/11. Thats because the brain has ways to file information so that thi

SSS 2009-01-22

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. For decades, scientists have used an imaging technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to chronicle the brain in action. But a stu

SSS 2010-01-18

Your feet may love running shoes. But what about the rest of your body? New research finds that running shoes actually increase the pressure on ankles, knees and hipsmore than high heels can during walking. Thats according to a study in the Journal o

SSS 2010-01-15

For astronomers who study the large-scale structure of the universe, dwarf galaxies have proven quite vexing. Because the leading model of cosmology has been unable to account for their relative lack of substance. Now scientists writing in the journa

SSS 2008-07-01

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I am Cynthia Graber. This'll just take a minute. Imagine tweezers so fine that you could reach right into a cell and manipulate individual molecules. MIT researchers have created such a tweezer, using

SSS 2009-09-01

It sounds paradoxical, but in wealthy countries, there's nothing like a recession to boost the population's health. According to a report in the September 1st Canadian Medical Association Journal, when our paychecks get lighter, we do more than tight

SSS 2009-10-01

Being drunk might make you more accident prone, but it also increases your chance of survival. Research published in the journal American Surgeon reveals that trauma patients are more likely to survive if they were intoxicated at the time of their in

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 2009-01-16

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. Theres definitely methane on Marsand there are seasonal variations of how much is being released into the thin Martian atmosphere. Which means that Mar

SSS 2009-01-09

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. Have you ever turned off your lights and heard [mosquito buzz]? To you its a sound that signals bites in the night. But to a male mosquito its a love son

SSS 2009-01-08

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute. Aspirin is a popular painkiller, and chances are you have some in your medicine chest right now. You might even have some in your flesh-and-blood, put-a-

SSS 2009-01-06

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute. If we want to learn more about our planet and other planets in the universe, we can get some help from stars that are long dead and gone. Thats what U.

SSS 2010-09-01

Theres been an unexpected development in our understanding of drug resistance in bacteria. The accepted scenario was a simple case of evolutionary selection. In a bacterial population exposed to a killer drug, a few lucky individuals might have a gen

SSS 2010-01-13

The author David Allen is considered to be one of world's top consultants when it comes to personal productivity. He's perhaps best known for his self-help time management book-Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity that has for yea

SSS 2010-01-11

When people suffer from a migraine, they often retire to a cave-like dark room. But exactly why does bright light hurt the migraine sufferer? A possible answer was published this week in the online issue of journal Nature Neuroscience. A big clue was

SSS 2010-01-07

It's hard to mistake that sound. Now imagine hearing it during a night that can last for months and where temperatures drop as low as 37 degrees Celsius. Enough to give nightmares to musk ox and Arctic hares, the favorite prey of the long-legged whit

SSS 2010-01-05

Sometimes it pays to look like a pile of poop. At least if youre a tasty caterpillar trying to avoid getting eaten by hungry birds. Because a study in the journal Science shows that even young chicks tend to overlook caterpillars disguised as dung. A