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If the cat in Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought-experiment behaved according to quantum theory, it would be able to exist in multiple states at once: both dead and alive. Physicists’ common explanation for why we don’t see such quantum superpositions—in cats or any other aspect of the everyday world—is interference from the environment. As soon as a quantum object interacts with a stray particle or a passing field, it picks just one state, collapsing into our classical, everyday view....

Frontline clinicians have become the face of our pandemic. They represent the best of humanity, rising to treat critically ill patients, as well as the collateral damage from America’s fragile health care system and disordered government response. Scientific American asked doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists working in hospitals across the country how they were coping with fear, processing grief and tending to their own well-being. Interviews were conducted in late March and early April, as COVID-19 was rapidly upending life in the U....

To lift the burden of infectious diseases in poor nations, Harvard University economist Michael Kremer has advocated a kind of artificial market for vaccines. In Kremer’s scheme, a donor would commit to paying a certain sum for the development of a vaccine and would purchase it at a high price per dose. After that, the company would supply the vaccine to poor countries at a low price. Kremer’s approach is one of many that have marshaled unprecedented creativity to chart new paths for medical research....

The moon generated a surprisingly intense magnetic field until at least 3.56 billion years ago, 160 million years longer than previously thought, a new study reports. The findings could shed light not just on the magnetic field of the moon, which is now extremely weak, but on that of asteroids and other distant worlds, investigators added. Earth’s magnetic field is created by its internal dynamo, which itself is generated by the planet’s churning molten metal core....

Researchers may be a touch closer to eliminating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and anthrax, thanks to a troublesome air pollutant—nitric oxide (NO). In the body, however, the compound plays a range of crucial roles—assisting with processes ranging from brain function to penile erection. Recent studies have discovered that NO also helps bacteria protect themselves. “This particular function of NO [is] important in making pathogens virulent,” says Evgeny Nudler, a professor of biochemistry at New York University Langone Medical Center in Manhattan....

Greg Foutz used to waste a lot of time—and water—in the morning. “The best-quality thought time you have is when you’re taking a shower,” he says. Trouble is, his showers were so lengthy that he was frequently late for work making pizzas at a local parlor in Stockton, Calif. One day a brainstorm hit: with his wife and a friend, Foutz, 45, designed a waterproof clock to fit inside a showerhead....

Cooperation eases our way in the world, contributing to extraordinary and mundane human achievements alike. Yet even the nicest do-gooders sometimes act with self-interest. A study published recently in Nature sought to understand the mental processes that tip a person from generous to greedy. “By default are we selfish animals who have to exert willpower in order to cooperate?” asks David Rand, a psychologist at Harvard University who led the study....

As usual, we had to leave out many exciting developments. To that end, we have decided to take a cue from Spinal Tap and turn it up to 11 with this top 10 list: specifically, a page of honorable mentions. What did we miss? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. » Begin the Countdown of the Top 10 Science Stories of 2013 Moon Shot to the Head: Global Initiatives Target the Brain Big Science in 2013 embraced not a search for yet another subatomic particle, but a quest to elicit the fundamental workings of mind and brain....

From a modern chemist’s perspective, the structure of DNA in our genes is rather mundane. The molecule has a well-known importance for life, but chemists often see only a uniform double helix with almost no functional behavior on its own. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that this molecule is the basis of a truly rich and strange research area that bridges synthetic chemistry, enzymology, structural nanotechnology and computer science....

At every stage of early development, human babies lag behind infants from other species. A kitten can amble across a room within moments of birth and catch its first mouse within weeks, while its wide-eyed human counterpart takes months to make her first step, and years to learn even simple tasks, such as how to tie a shoelace or skip a rope, let alone prepare a three-course meal. Yet, in the cognitive race, human babies turn out to be much like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable: emerging triumphant after a slow and steady climb to the finish....

The Pacific island country of Kiribati is an increasingly popular destination for journalists and environmental activists hoping to “see” sea level rise. If they travel to the right village at the right stage of the annual tidal cycle and wander out at the right time of the day, they will certainly find flooding. The images of flooded homes, taro pits and maneabas (community meeting huts) do provide a window into Kiribati’s possible future....

Kemal Ali ran a successful well-digging business for farmers in northern Syria for 30 years. He had everything he needed for the job: a heavy driver to pound pipe into the ground, a battered but reliable truck to carry his machinery, a willing crew of young men to do the grunt work. More than that, he had a sharp sense of where to dig, as well as trusted contacts in local government on whom he could count to look the other way if he bent the rules....

A friend (let’s call her Rosa) recently spent several weeks cold-e-mailing business school alumni who had built successful ventures. Rosa is a woman of color and an aspiring entrepreneur, and she planned to apply to business school herself. She hoped to build her network or at least get some useful advice. But she faced a dilemma: In her messages, should she highlight that she’s a woman and a member of a racial minority group in entrepreneurship—or let her identity fade into the background?...

The push to confer full “personhood” status on every fertilized human egg has been rejected by voters and lawmakers in state after state, including deep-red Mississippi. But activists are cautiously hopeful that their cause could get a boost from Republicans who are about to assume leadership in Washington. Georgia Representative Tom Price, who has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to run the Department of Health and Human Services, has twice co-sponsored federal legislation that would define fertilized human eggs as legal persons — a move that would outlaw not just abortion, but also potentially the pill and other common methods of birth control....

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A volcanic eruption in Papua New Guinea on Friday sent smoke and ash spewing high over the South Pacific island nation, leading some aircraft to alter their flight paths. Mount Tavurvur on East New Britain Island erupted hours before dawn, a bulletin from the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory said. There have been no reports of injuries. Qantas said that it was altering the path of a handful of international flights in the area, but that it would add only about five minutes to their scheduled time....

This week, a listener named Tina wrote in to ask me, “What exactly is bluetooth?” I thought this was a great question, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already answered it on my show. So, without further ado … What Does Bluetooth Do? You’ve probably seen Bluetooth advertised on almost every smartphone and most small electronics. This is because Bluetooth is a form of wireless communication made specifically for close range, low power communication....

In 2003 a 65-year-old man brought a strange problem to neurologist Adam Zeman, now at the University of Exeter in England. The patient, later dubbed “MX,” claimed he could not conjure images of friends, family members or recently visited places. All his life, MX, a retired surveyor, had loved reading novels and had routinely drifted off to sleep visualizing buildings, loved ones and recent events. But after undergoing a procedure to open arteries in his heart, during which he probably suffered a minor stroke, his mind’s eye went blind....

Try this simple thought experiment. Name 10 female geniuses from any period in history. Odds are you ran out of names pretty quickly. The message is clear: something is rotten in the state of genius. Besting most of one’s species is an accident of circumstance. The sequences of DNA nucleotides, arranged just so to impart intelligence, curiosity and passion, are part of that fluke event. More serendipitous still are the conditions needed for a person to devote decades to an idea or calling, deaf and blind to the distractions bound up in being human....

A new study shows that diet may be a key culprit in asthma, a chronic swelling of the airways that affects some 20 million Americans, six million of them children. Researchers report in the journal Chest that adolescents are more likely to experience respiratory problems if their diets are deficient in certain nutrients. “Teens with the lowest intake of fruit, vitamins C and E, and omega-3 fatty acids had lower lung function and higher reports of respiratory symptoms such as cough and wheeze,” says study author Jane Burns, an epidemiologist at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston....

People getting subsidies to help buy health insurance would see at least three sharp changes—tied to both age and income—that could dramatically affect how much they pay for coverage if the Senate Republican health plan becomes law. The Senate bill released Thursday would reduce the income thresholds that determine eligibility, change the amount people who receive help pay toward their insurance premiums and peg subsidies to less generous coverage. About 85 percent of the nearly 10 million consumers who enrolled in coverage last year through federal and state marketplaces received tax credit subsidies and other types of financial assistance....