Scientific American - Science and Society
Scientific American - Environment
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What Is It?
The honeycomb lattice is one of nature’s favorite patterns. In the two-dimensional crystal of carbon atoms known as graphene, for instance, the honeycomb structure arises from bonds among the atoms. Kenjiro K. Gomes of Stanford University and his colleagues have learned to make a honeycomb material in a striking new way. They place carbon monoxide molecules at regular intervals on the surface of a copper crystal, creating an imitation graphene layer. (The added molecules appear as black dots.)
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Why Tariffs on Chinese Photovoltaics Are Bad for the Planet
This week, the U.S. government slapped tariffs (pdf) of more than 31 percent on the price of solar cells made by Chinese companies that cooperated with a recent probe. Those companies that stayed mum face even higher tariffs--as much as 250 percent.
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Volcanic Tremors May Help Predict Massive Eruptions
Earthquakes often precede explosive volcanic eruptions such as the devastating outburst from Mount St. Helens in 1980. But attempts to use tremors to predict the timing and force of such explosions have proved unsuccessful for decades. Now multidisciplinary teams of researchers have developed models that could help warn of disastrous eruptions hours to days before they happen.
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- Coyotes Are the New Top Dogs
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Track Record: Do Major Urban Subway Networks Evolve along Similar Patterns?
No two subway systems have the same design. New York City’s haphazard rail system differs markedly from the highly organized Moscow Metro (above), or the tangled spaghetti of Tokyo ’s subway network. Each system’s design is the result of many factors, including local geography, the city’s layout and traffic distribution, politics, culture and degree of urban planning.
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How Bacteria in Our Bodies Protect Our Health (preview)
Biologists once thought that human beings were physiological islands, entirely capable of regulating their own internal workings. Our bodies made all the enzymes needed for breaking down food and using its nutrients to power and repair our tissues and organs. Signals from our own tissues dictated body states such as hunger or satiety. The specialized cells of our immune system taught themselves how to recognize and attack dangerous microbes--pathogens--while at the same time sparing our own tissues.
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Your Microbiome Community Brings New Meaning to "We the People"
“No man is an island, entire of itself,” wrote English poet John Donne. Nearly four centuries later science is gaining a fuller appreciation of just how literally true that is.
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Understanding How Animals Create Dazzling Colors Could Lead to Brilliant New Nanotechnologies (preview)
The changing hues of a peacock’s splendid tail feathers have always captivated curious minds. Seventeenth-century English scientist Robert Hooke called them “fantastical,” in part because wetting the feathers caused the colors to disappear. Hooke used the recently invented microscope to investigate the feathers and saw that they were covered with tiny ridges, which he figured might produce the brilliant yellows, greens and blues.
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Wasted Food No More
When you don't clean your plate, microbes feast. And Americans are awfully good at feeding microbes, wasting some 222 million metric tons of food a year. That's a quarter of our food.
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- Food Deserts Leave Many Americans High and Dry
- Climate Forecasting: A Break in the Clouds
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Squirmy Science: Which Soil Types Do Earthworms Like Best?
Key concepts [More]
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Why Science Is Better When It's Multinational
Nations are rivals in soccer and international relations, but science is a unifying force. Many of our biggest achievements seem to come from international collaborations. A team from 11 laboratories in nine countries identified the SARS coronavirus in 2003 with unprecedented speed. Scientists come from all over to chase the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. Centers of excellence dot the globe. The world of science is getting flatter.
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Hive and Seek: Domestic Honeybees Keep Disappearing, but Are Their Wild Cousins in Trouble, Too? [Slide Show]
Bees are making headlines these days, and not in a positive way. Colony collapse disorder has cut through honeybee populations, with some beekeepers reportedly losing up to 90 percent of their stock in recent years. European bee populations are also declining, and so are some species of North American bumblebee. That data is often interpreted to mean that all of the world's 20,000 bee species are in danger, and that we may be in the midst of a "global pollinator crisis." But there's little data to back up those claims, scientists say.
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How to Adapt to Climate Change
For want of a mangrove , the village was lost. In fact, the loss of coastal mangroves made even a costly dyke along the Vietnamese seashore inadequate to cope with a recent typhoon. Plus, the absence of mangroves hit livelihoods--less seafood to catch.
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Are We Born to Be Religious? (preview)
A deep question pervades the debates surrounding religion--whether God exists, sure, but that one is mighty difficult to answer. Instead we can ask a related, more approachable query: Why does God exist for some of us but not for others? Theologians and ministers preach that faith is preeminently a matter of personal choice. Is it, really?
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Recommended: Bird Sense
Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird [More]
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Rebirth Control: Lessons Learned from 90 Years of Rainforest Regeneration [Slide Show]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia--There are macaques everywhere--climbing on the rocks, grooming one another as they sit on the forest floor. Others have babies on their backs as they trot along at a fair clip. The air is thick with humidity and it must be 35 degrees Celsius or more--the heavy gray clouds above look ready to crack into a noisy tropical thunderstorm at any moment. I'm making my way along a dense rainforest path with the noisy thrum of insects all around me.
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How Biodiversity Keeps Earth Alive
In 1994 biologists seeded patches of grassland in Cedar Creek, Minn. Some plots got as many as 16 species of grasses and other plants--and some as few as one. In the first few years plots with eight or more species fared about as well as those with fewer species, suggesting that a complex mix of species--what is known as biodiversity--didn't affect the amount of a plot's leaf, blade, stem and root (or biomass, as scientists call it). But when measured over a longer span--more than a decade--those plots with the most species produced the greatest abundance of plant life.
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Coal Exports Boost Train Impacts out West
BILLINGS, Mont.--The emissions are unhealthy, the noise insufferable. But it's the wait that can be life-threatening.
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