SCIENCE
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Anyone Can Learn Echolocation in Just 10 Weeks—And It Remodels Your Brain
October 24, 2024 2 min read Anyone Can Learn Echolocation in Just 10 Weeks—And It Remodels Your Brain Human echolocation repurposes parts of the brain’s visual cortex for sound, even in sighted people By Simon Makin Human echolocation has at times allowed people to ride bikes or play basketball despite being completely blind from a very young age. These echolocators…
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How Your Brain Processes Zero (It’s Not Exactly ‘Nothing’)
October 21, 2024 3 min read How Your Brain Processes Zero (It’s Not Exactly ‘Nothing’) What we think about when we think about “zilch” is surprisingly complex, neuroscientists find By Michaela Maya-Mrschtik & Daisy Yuhas The invention of zero made many mathematical calculations possible. Many mathematical equations can only be solved thanks to a special human invention: the number zero.…
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Ancient ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ Seafloor Found beneath Pacific Ocean
October 17, 2024 3 min read Ancient Seafloor Discovered Slowly Sinking into Earth’s Mantle A vast, ancient slab of seafloor plunged beneath the Pacific Ocean and has hovered in Earth’s mantle for more than 120 million years, a new study suggests By Jeanna Bryner The Nazca plate is located to the west of South America’s Pacific coast. On the western…
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Tiny Babies Who Can Smell Their Mother Recognize Faces Better
October 15, 2024 2 min read Tiny Babies Who Can Smell Their Mother Recognize Faces Better A smell’s effect on facial recognition is key at first—but decreases as a baby’s eyesight improves By Simon Makin StefaNikolic/Getty Images Babies experience a torrent of sensory information from the moment they are born. Knowing nothing about the world, they must learn to sort…
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Human Origins Look Ever More Tangled with Gene and Fossil Discoveries
October 11, 2024 4 min read Humanity’s Origins Paint Our Ancestors as Lovers, Not Fighters Fossil and gene discoveries paint an ever-more-intertwined history of humans combining with vanished species like Neandertals By Daniel Vergano The reconstructed face of Krijn, the oldest Neanderthal found in the Netherlands, displayed at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden on September 6, 2021. Bart…
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2024 Chemistry Nobel Awarded for Cracking the Secret Code of Proteins
October 9, 2024 2 min read 2024 Chemistry Nobel Awarded for Cracking the Secret Code of Proteins Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering how to predict the shape of proteins, crucial to understanding their function, and for creating entirely novel proteins that can clean the environment, block viruses, and more By Josh Fischman vanbeets/Getty Images (medal)…
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Challenging Big Oil’s Big Lie about Plastic Recycling
October 5, 2024 4 min read Challenging Big Oil’s Big Lie about Plastic Recycling California’s lawsuit against Exxon is about ending the lie that most plastic is recyclable By Judith Enck BrianAJackson/Getty Images Among the plastic in your house might be an orange-colored hard laundry detergent bottle and a squeezable clear ketchup bottle. Come recycling day, you might put them…
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Hard Nuclear Weapons Choices Await Harris or Trump as President
October 3, 2024 5 min read The Next President Faces Tough Nuclear Weapons Deadlines Whoever wins the 2024 presidential election will face heightened nuclear geopolitics, deadlines on nuclear deals with Russia and Iran and decisions on a $2-trillion weapons-modernization effort By Daniel Vergano Amid the many dangers facing the world, questions about the direction of U.S. nuclear policy—and control of…
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Combating Misinformation Runs Deeper Than Swatting Away ‘Fake News’
September 30, 2024 5 min read Combating Misinformation Runs Deeper Than Swatting Away ‘Fake News’ “Fake news”-style misinformation is only a fraction of what deceives voters. Fighting misinformation will require holding political elites and mainstream media accountable By Jennifer Allen & David Rand Americans are increasingly concerned about online misinformation, especially in light of recent news that the Justice Department…
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Rare Diagnoses Change People’s Perception of Medical Risk
As a graphics editor at Scientific American, I spend a lot of time thinking about and visualizing data—including data on medical risks. So when I got pregnant in 2018, I was prepared for things to be complicated. Some of the most common issues loomed in my mind: for example, as many as one in five known pregnancies ends in miscarriage,…
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