2019-03-01
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How the Brain Grows Up
May 26, 2004Those of us who've had to deal with cranky toddlers and stubborn teenagers will not be surprised to learn that the brain's center of reasoning and problem solving is the last to mature. This may be why it's so much... continued
A Skin Story
May 26, 2004In the movie Fahrenheit 451, books have been burned, so a group of people volunteer to each memorize a book in order to keep it alive. Now author Shelley Jackson is using volunteers to create a story called "Skin." Each... continued
Chicago is Sinking While Canada is Rising
May 24, 2004We know that Venice and New Orleans are sinking?but Chicago? It turns out that melting Canadian glaciers are causing the land around Chicago to sink.The ground underneath the city is sinking at less than an inch a year, but this... continued
Smoking: Cutting Back Doesn?t Help
May 24, 2004Most smokers find it much easier to cut down their number of cigarettes a day than they do to quit smoking entirely. Now scientists know why: they're actually still getting the same amount of nicotine and cancer-causing agents because they've... continued
The Satisfaction of Making Money
May 24, 2004A new study shows that people who inherit their money (or win it in the lottery) instead of working for it don?t get as much happiness from it. Behavioral scientist Greg Berns compared the brain activity of people playing two... continued
Climate Change Makes World a Duller Place
May 23, 2004Climate change will affect the world's poor more drastically than rich nations, but the rich will suffer too. For all of us, the world will become a much duller place. Many of the impacts of global warming are not life-threatening... continued
Code May Reveal Location of Grail
May 23, 2004The experts who broke the Nazi's secret codes are trying to decipher the mysterious 10-letter inscription D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. on an 18th-century monument at an English country estate. Legends say it reveals the location of the Holy Grail. Jill Lawless writes that... continued
Eureka!
May 23, 2004There?s a certain type of sudden realization that cartoonists often portray with a light bulb going on over the head?the "Eureka!" experience. What?s going on inside our brains when this happens? Mark Jung-Beeman says this happens "when you need to... continued
Space Poop
May 21, 2004A vital but unasked question is: what happens to human waste in space? Right now, astronauts bring it back home with them, but on longer space voyages, other solutions will be needed. This will become more important in the future,... continued
Vatican Astronomy
May 21, 2004People are often surprised to find out that the Vatican owns an observatory in Tucson, Arizona. They originally had a telescope in Rome, but the growing population made the sky too bright for astronomical observations. Jesuit astronomer Guy Consolmagno says,... continued