Posts

Brainy Benefits: The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brainby Brock L. and Fernette F. Eide .Hudson Street Press, 2011 (($25.95))Perhaps the most challenging part of being dyslexic is the misconception that it makes people unintelligent or slow. In response, Brock and Fernette Eide have delivered a compelling call to action in their new book The Dyslexic Advantage: it is time to stop classifying dyslexia as a learning disability and start appreciating that different brain-wiring patterns allow people to process information in unique ways....

Physicists have sketched a blueprint for building a quantum computer using existing technology that would be powerful enough to crack important and currently unsolvable problems, such as factoring enormous numbers. Such a machine would need to be larger than a football pitch and would cost at least £100 million (US$126 million) to make, its designers say. “Yes it will be big, yes it will be expensive — but it absolutely can be built right now,” says quantum physicist Winfried Hensinger of the University of Sussex, UK, who leads the team that published the blueprint in a paper in Science Advances1 on 1 February....

Researchers report they have generated the first confirmed embryonic stem cells from an adult primate, suggesting that it may be only a matter of time (and eggs) before they perfect the same technique on humans. Using a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a team from Oregon Health & Science University (O.H.S.U.) in Portland implanted the contents of individual skin cells from adult male rhesus macaques into each of 304 macaque egg cells stripped of their genetic material....

Fabricating, falsifying or plagiarizing data can get a grant yanked or a researcher blacklisted for breaking the professional code of science. Now, some funders are facing a fresh challenge: what to do with grants given to scientists who commit sexual transgressions. The US government does not classify sexual infractions as research misconduct. Instead, as recent high-profile cases illustrate, the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) must navigate a relatively new legal landscape when confronted with sexual harassment by grant recipients....

Imagine you are faced with the classic thought experiment dilemma: You can take a pile of money now or wait and get an even bigger stash of cash later on. Which option do you choose? Your level of self-control, researchers have found, may have to do with a region of the brain that lets us take the perspective of others—including that of our future self. A study, published today in Science Advances, found that when scientists used noninvasive brain stimulation to disrupt a brain region called the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), people appeared less able to see things from the point of view of their future selves or of another person, and consequently were less likely to share money with others and more inclined to opt for immediate cash instead of waiting for a larger bounty at a later date....

Insomnia is such a prevalent medical condition in this day and age of our fast-paced world. Juggling the hustle and bustle of everyday life, whether it is school, work, parenting, or family, can really do a number on our stress levels. Add a tinge of anxiety and depression, and this can be a recipe for some major sleepless nights. Medications should never be our first choice when tackling insomnia, however. Most insomnia can be treated well with some behavioral changes, albeit not always easy to accomplish but quite worth the effort....

A man walks along the inside of a circle of chess tables, glancing at each for two or three seconds before making his move. On the outer rim, dozens of amateurs sit pondering their replies until he completes the circuit. The year is 1909, the man is Jos¿ Ra¿l Capablanca of Cuba, and the result is a whitewash: 28 wins in as many games. The exhibition was part of a tour in which Capablanca won 168 games in a row....

Artificial intelligence can go beyond recognizing a face; the latest technology also tries to read facial expressions to assess what the subject is feeling. Such systems are relatively early in their development—and prone to serious errors—but the idea of someday seeing them in widespread use still worried computer programmer and filmmaker Noah Levenson. “We’re giving all these corporations unrestricted access to our faces all the time,” he says. “We’re using Snapchat to put these filters on our faces....

Some of the warmest early November weather on record has plants and animals behaving oddly in the UK. Flowers, insects and birds have been among the lifeforms observed showing unusual patterns of behavior, in light of average temperatures for central England about 3 degrees C above normal, the UK’s Daily Mail said on Monday. The UK Met Office pegged average central England temperature for the first half of November at 10....

“A view of the U.S. urban riots of the past four years as a ‘prepolitical’ form of collective action, rather than a series of senseless outbreaks of blind rage, is beginning to emerge among social scientists. While there is no consensus among investigators, there is general emphasis on the idea that the disorders represent more than a sudden reaction to years of deprivation. The riots are seen rather as implicitly political demonstrations, although not as organized, conspiratorial political acts....

The twin crises roiling society right now—the coronavirus pandemic and pervasive racism—are intertwined and reinforce one another. A way to address both is to nurture the talent for science and technology among underrepresented students across America. Consider these two examples: When David Lucero arrived at the University of Vermont from Queens, New York, in 2004, this first-generation college student had little direction. After a professor in an intro biology course engaged him in her research tracking Chagas disease, he became passionate about disease ecology, eventually earning a Ph....

Stephen Johnston dreams of a future in which humans could protect themselves against all types of cancer with a single shot. As the biochemist envisions it, this prophylactic injection would train the immune system to pick off cancerous cells before they could mobilize into malignancies. The catch: many oncology specialists insist this is scientifically impossible. Critics of the concept say tumor cells are too genetically complex to be consistently thwarted by zeroing in on any one target....

Dear EarthTalk: I don’t understand why many people oppose wind power just because they have to look at the turbines. If you ask me, wind turbines are much nicer-looking than coal-fired, waste-to-energy or nuclear power plants. —Michael Hart, via e-mail Whether it’s a wind farm, a coal-fired power plant, a nuclear reactor or even just a big box store, there are always going to be locals opposed to it, declaring “not in my back yard!...

The Best American Infographics 2015 edited by Gareth Cook Mariner, 2015 (($20)) At their best, information graphics can bridge the practical and the poetic, writes journalist Maria Popova in the introduction to this collection. The displays curated by Scientific American Mind contributing editor Cook do just that, catapulting readers into a world of data designed to enthrall. (Scientific American editor in chief Mariette DiChristina and senior graphics editor Jen Christiansen were advisers for the book....

Donna Nelson, a University of Oklahoma chemistry professor, used to help a notorious drug dealer. Fortunately, the criminal in question was the mythical meth maker Walter White of AMC’s Breaking Bad fame. “I actually had a lot of concerns,” said Nelson at STEM Summit 3.0 on August 4 in New York City, an event sponsored by Scientific American and Macmillan Education to foster ideas about teaching STEM: science, technology, engineering and math—including the public communication of science, for example, on television shows....

RAROTONGA, COOK ISLANDS—Twenty-one degrees, 12 minutes south of the equator, 2,771 miles south-southeast of the southern tip of the island of Hawaii, 30 feet below 4-foot swells, Nicole Pedersen swims slowly, wearing a wetsuit, headband, and full scuba gear and carrying a custom-built plexiglass-and-PVC case the size of a tackle box. Within it, twin DSLR cameras automatically photograph a reef a quarter-mile off the coast of Rarotonga. It’s the last of 12 dives she and colleagues from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have made over three days of their research expedition here....

Deep beneath the bleached-out, dusty surface of the drought-stricken West is a stash of water sequestered between layers of rock and sometimes built up over centuries. Officials in the Colorado River basin states have long treated this liquid treasure as a type of environmental retirement account — an additional supply of water they can raid to get through the driest years and make up for the chronic overuse of the rivers themselves....

While American lawmakers have succumbed, yet again, to a preoccupation with the debate over whether a pipeline should be built through the U.S. to help Canadian tar sands miners reach intercontinental oil markets, European officials have been spending the week knuckling down on climate action. On Tuesday, the European Parliament’s environment committee agreed on a plan to shore up the continent’s flagshipcap-and-trade program, which has been ailing for years. Coincidentally, one day later, the European Commission outlined its vision for how Europe and the rest of the world should work together under a new U....

At least 11 states will get a chance to vote this fall on a variety of environmental ballot measures—a surge of activity that could foreshadow the policies of a future Democratic administration. The measures run the gamut: from a proposal to protect salmon in Alaska to a carbon tax in Washington state to twin efforts in Arizona and Nevada to force utilities to generate at least 50 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030....

Hike from one valley to another via a mountain pass, and eventually you’ll come to the highest point of your journey, where you’ll probably stop briefly to take in the view before descending. That moment serves as a good analogy to one of chemistry’s mysteries: the brief transition state that occurs just as molecules in a reaction are about to transform into new chemical species. Scientists have long regarded transition states as too unstable and fleeting to be observed....