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Just before this issue went to press, Scientific American published a news story describing a new condition coined by psychologists: cave syndrome. Uniquely relevant to the COVID world, those who experience it fear leaving home and interacting as they did before the pandemic, even though they have been fully vaccinated. Several members of my close circle could easily fit this description—despite having gotten their shots, they can’t imagine doing all the things they once did, like going into their friends’ apartments, meeting dates unmasked or eating indoors at a restaurant....

What Einstein’s E=mc2 is to relativity theory, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is to quantum mechanics—not just a profound insight, but also an iconic formula that even non-physicists recognize. The principle holds that we cannot know the present state of the world in full detail, let alone predict the future with absolute precision. It marks a clear break from the classical deterministic view of the universe. Yet the uncertainty principle comes in two superficially similar formulations that even many practicing physicists tend to confuse....

CANCER CONTROL As a community oncologist, I enjoyed James DeGregori and Robert Gatenby’s article “Darwin’s Cancer Fix.” Their approach to treating metastatic prostate cancer by managing its growth, rather than trying to kill all cancer cells, to avoid drug-resistant tumors is intriguing and deserves a large randomized phase III trial. But it is very important to remember that, biologically, cancers are extremely heterogeneous, and there are caveats to the principles the authors outline....

Children are scientists in a primordial world. In those first years they’ll learn the laws of gravity, the shapeless flow of time, the first principles of love. Everything must be discovered, from peanut butter to rainstorms, and all things may as well be magic. And then, as children age, magic is stolen from them. It’s slow for some, and faster for many who feel the weight placed on the color of skin or the balance of a bank account....

In mid-September, upon hearing the devastating news of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death, I set aside my usual science and journalism to focus on what seemed to matter most: talking to voters. I spent every day for nearly two months contacting them over the phone, at doorsteps, through screen doors and in driveways. I logged 2,500 phone calls, knocked 900 doors, walked 48 miles, and most importantly, engaged in 485 one-on-one conversations with people from all corners of Montana....

If you had four pictures of a person at different ages, how would you lay them out in chronological order? As an English speaker, you would almost certainly put childhood scenes on the left and pictures from old age on the right. But if you spoke another language, you might arrange the photos in a column or even from east to west. Almost every culture in the world uses space to think about time, but the visualizations vary widely....

Next week, in the first major contest of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, Democratic Party voters in Iowa will pick the candidate they want to face off against President Donald Trump. One of the top contenders, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has come out with a proposal to keep so-called junk science, supported by industry, out of federal policy decisions. Many scientists have pointed out that misleading research and evidence, raised to new prominence under the Trump administration, has led to environmental and health policies that endanger the public....

For most states in the U.S., winters without snow would be like a Super Bowl performance without Beyonce, Donald Trump without a combover or an overseas flight without a passport. And yet that’s exactly what’s been happening. As the world warms, it’s changing the essence of winter. It’s not that less precipitation is falling (though that is happening in some areas). It’s that less winter precipitation is falling as snow, according to a new Climate Central analysis....

As astronomers gaze into the depths of space, they do so with unease: They don’t know precisely what the universe is made of. It’s not just the true nature of dark matter that eludes them; so does the essence of the stars that speckle the sky and populate the many galaxies throughout the cosmos. Surprisingly, no one knows the stars’ exact chemical composition: how many carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms they have relative to hydrogen, the most common element....

By the time John Muir and his trusty mule Brownie splashed across the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River in the fall of 1875, the Scottish-born naturalist had already seen his fair share of California grandiosity: Yosemite Valley; the high Sierra; Mariposa Grove. Muir had a thirst for exploration and a talent for storytelling. He founded the Sierra Club and dubbed its eponymous mountains the “Range of Light.” When Muir sauntered upon a montane plateau in what is now known as Sequoia National Park on that autumn day, he found a very large stand of very large trees....

Key concepts Physics Engineering Elastic potential energy Projectile motion Introduction Catapults were mighty handy for pirates in the golden age of piracy (during the 17th century). And medieval knights used them centuries earlier for taking down massive castle walls. Even Greeks and Romans used catapults about 2,000 years ago! These simple machines are quite handy, as long as you know how to aim them! In this science activity you will try your hand at catapult technology....

With access to abortion at stake across America, California is preparing to become the nation’s abortion provider. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders have asked a group of reproductive health experts to propose policies to bolster the state’s abortion infrastructure and ready it for more patients. Lawmakers plan to begin debating the ideas when they reconvene in January. Abortion clinics are already girding themselves for a surge in demand. Janet Jacobson, medical director of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, said three or four out-of-state patients visit her clinics each day — about double the number that sought treatment before a near-total ban on abortion took effect in Texas in September....

By Kelly TwedellFAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Water pollution at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina has been linked to increased risk of birth defects and childhood cancers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.A study released by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substance & Disease Registry on Thursday confirmed a long-suspected link between chemical contaminants in tap water at the Marine Corps base and serious birth defects such as spina bifidaIt also showed a slightly elevated risk of childhood cancers including leukemia....

As people around the world receive COVID-19 vaccines, reports of temporary side effects such as headaches and fevers are rolling in. Much of this was expected—clinical-trial data for the vaccines authorized so far suggested as much. But now that millions of people are vaccinated, compared with the thousands enrolled in early studies, reports of some rare, allergic reactions are surfacing, and questions are arising about whether any deaths are linked to the shots....

While tornadoes normally take center stage during severe weather season, for Oklahoma City on Wednesday, it was torrential rains and flash flooding that overshadowed the twisters. The city recorded more than 7 inches of rain in 24 hours, the third-highest single day rainfall total for any day since record-keeping began in 1891. The deluge caused major flooding that damaged roads and buildings and sent cars floating down streets turned into rivers....

As if worrying about the vulnerability of your PC and smart phone to hackers were not enough, could your car be the next target? Maybe not today, but engineers are transforming automobiles from a collection of mechanical devices crowded around a combustion engine to a sophisticated network of as many as 70 computers—called electronic control units (ECUs). These computers are linked to one another and to the Internet, making the car a mini mobile data center susceptible to many of the same digital dangers—viruses, denial-of-service attacks, etcetera—that have long plagued PCs and other networked devices....

Giant pandas and the distantly related red pandas may have independently evolved an extra ‘digit’—a false thumb—through changes to the same genes. The two species share a common ancestor that lived more than 40 million years ago. Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are distant relatives of other bears, whereas red pandas (Ailurus fulgens) are more closely related to ferrets. Both species subsist on a diet composed almost entirely of bamboo, with the help of a false digit....

Thirty years ago most psychologists, psychiatrists and philosophers thought that babies and young children were irrational, egocentric and amoral. They believed children were locked in the concrete here and now—unable to understand cause and effect, imagine the experiences of other people, or appreciate the difference between reality and fantasy. People still often think of children as defective adults. But in the past three decades scientists have discovered that even the youngest children know more than we would ever have thought possible....

Although women are publishing more studies, being cited more often, and securing more coveted first-author positions than they were in the mid 1990s, overall progress towards gender parity in science varies widely by country and field. This is according to a massive report released on March 8 that is the first to examine such a broad swath of disciplines and regions of the world over time. The report by the publisher Elsevier found that despite their moderate advances, women still published fewer articles than men, and were much less likely to be listed as first or last authors on a paper....

Arctic sea ice continues to dwindle at an exceptional pace. Summer sea ice has declined at a rate of 13 percent per decade, and the rate has sped up in the last 10 years. The main driver for Arctic sea ice’s disappearing act is the rising ocean and air temperatures driven by human greenhouse gas emissions. But that isn’t the only factor affecting Arctic sea ice. Air pollution also plays a role and can actually slow down warming....