Coping with Chemo Brain
BEFORE MEGAN-CLAIRE CHASE received her first round of chemotherapy in October 2015, her oncologist told her that side effects of cancer…
Category: Recent Work
Research Has a “Trash Island.” Some Are Trying to Clean it Up.
Bad science can do lasting damage. A study falsely connecting COVID-19 to 5G wireless technology, for instance, was quickly retracted for its…
How Mathematicians Cracked the Zodiac Killer’s Cipher
In the late 1960s, a serial killer self-identifying as “the Zodiac” killed at least five people in Northern California and…
Genes point to how some bacteria can gobble up electricity
Bacteria can have superpowers. Some flourish in almost any environment. Others can transform toxic materials into harmless sludge. A bacterium…
AI, Explain Thyself
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 20, 2021 The past decade has seen machine learning—finding patterns in vast piles of data—in a state of…
Green ammonia could produce climate-friendly ways to store energy and fertilize farms
Curbing climate change goes hand-in-hand with decarbonizing energy production. But how can communities continue to meet the global demand for…
When Cancer is in the Family
AMY YOFFE HAS ALWAYS KNOWN that cancer runs in her family and is acutely aware of the loss that comes with it.…
Astronomer-turned-filmmaker strives to ignite an interest in space
For scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, the night of January 3, 2004 entailed six minutes of…
Cancer Care’s Virtual Revolution
AT SUNRISE ON MARCH 4, 2020, the same day the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Houston and one week before…
When Scientific American Made M. C. Escher Famous
Between 1957 and 1986 Martin Gardner wrote the Mathematical Games column for this magazine, with a total of 297 installments.…