Flying Car Debuts At NY Auto Show

It’s the symbol of a future that never happened: a practical flying car has been on inventors’ drawing boards since the 1930s . A few flying cars were produced, but were really glorified small airplanes. 

Snappy Science: Stretched Rubber Bands Are Loaded with Potential Energy!

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What is Quantum Gravity [Video]

The force of gravity is the lost sheep of physics, and physicists have struggled for the best part of a century to unite it with the rest of their flock of particles and forces. An unexpectedly fruitful approach has been to think of how gravity might operate if space were only two-dimensional. By simplifying the problem, they hope to get to the heart of what gravity is and then apply the lessons to our higher-dimensional space.

Ship-Safe Seas: Could the Titanic Disaster Happen Again?

After the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, claiming more than 1,500 lives, the international community took swift action to prevent similar catastrophes.

What Thawed the Last Ice Age?

Roughly 20,000 years ago the great ice sheets that buried much of Asia, Europe and North America stopped their creeping advance. Within a few hundred years sea levels in some places had risen by as much as 10 meters--more than if the ice sheet that still covers Greenland were to melt today. This freshwater flood filled the North Atlantic and also shut down the ocean currents that conveyed warmer water from equatorial regions northward. The equatorial heat warmed the precincts of Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere instead, shrinking the fringing sea ice and changing the circumpolar winds. As a result--and for reasons that remain unexplained--the waters of the Southern Ocean may have begun to release carbon dioxide, enough to raise concentrations in the atmosphere by more than 100 parts per million over millennia--roughly equivalent to the rise in the last 200 years. That CO2 then warmed the globe , melting back the continental ice sheets and ushering in the current climate that enabled humanity to thrive.

Shooting for the Moon [Slide Show]

Right now, twenty-six groups of scientists, engineers and students from around the world are competing to be the first non-government team to get a rover on the moon by 2015. In this month's issue of Scientific American , Michael Belfiore explores what the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition means for the future of private spaceflight and tells the story of one of the most impressive teams - team Astrobotic. In this Web Exclusive, take a behind-the-scenes look at Astrobotic's preparations for a trip to the moon.

Entrepreneurs Race to Get a Rover on the Moon and Win $30 Million (preview)

On a muddy, rubble-strewn field on the banks of the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, a five-foot-tall pyra­midal robot with twin camera eyes slowly rotates on four metal wheels, its electric motors emitting a low whine. In a nearby trailer, students from Carnegie Mellon University huddle around a laptop to watch the world through the robot’s eyes. In the low-resolution grayscale images on the laptop’s screen, the rutted landscape looks a lot like the moon, which is the robot’s ultimate destination.

How Useful Is Whole Genome Sequencing to Predict Disease?

A $1,000 genome sequence is close to being available. What will your sequence tell you about your actual risk for certain diseases?

135 Years of Records Reveals Deep Ocean Warming

Her Majesty's Ship Challenger set sail in 1872. Stripped of her guns and outfitted for science , her mission was to sail around the globe sampling as she went.

Readers Respond to "The Death of Preschool"--and More

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Live Webcast: Xenophobia--Why Do We Fear Others?

Join a panel of scientists, scholars and public intellectuals, including primatologist Frans de Waal, international economic advisor and Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs, experimental social psychologist Steven Neuberg, cognitive neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe, physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson and New York Times editorialist Charles Blow , as they discuss the biological and social dimensions of the timely issue of xenophobia, or the unreasonable fear of "others."

A Rosie Future: Jetsons -Like Gadgets with "Ambient Intelligence" Are Key to Smart Homes and Cities

Fifty years after The Jetsons promised us a future of robot maids, flying cars, video phones and meals at the push of a button, it seems that reality may actually surpass this futuristic vision. By 2062, the year the animated show was set, advances in artificial intelligence , sensor networks and robotics promise to make the Jetsons's home in Skypad Apartments, and indeed in all of Orbit City, seem quaint by comparison (although flying cars may remain out of reach--especially ones that beat parking problems by folding into a suitcase). [More]


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Probability and the Birthday Paradox

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Frequent Chocolate Eaters Have Lower BMI

It's a dangerous time of year for a chocoholic--chocolate rabbits and eggs abound. But a weakness for the cocoa bean might not be a bad thing: those who indulge more frequently seem to actually have lower Body Mass Indexes, BMIs.

Thyme Kills Acne Bacteria

Compounds found in the herb thyme have antibiotic properties. Now scientists have demonstrated that thyme might have a future role in fighting acne.

Birth Control Pills Have Lasting Effects on Relationships

Birth-control pills are known to affect women’s taste in men, at least in laboratory experiments. Now a study of real-world couples suggests that this pill-related preference change could have long-term consequences for a relationship’s quality and outcome.

Rhythm and Music Help Math Students

Stuck on a tricky math problem? Start clapping. Grade school kids who learned about fractions through a rhythm-and-music-based curriculum outperformed their peers in traditional math classes. The work is in Educational Studies in Mathematics . [Susan Joan Courey et al., " Academic music: music instruction to engage third-grade students in learning basic fraction concepts "]

Animals through the Ages: The Art of Charles R. Knight [Slide Show]

Charles R. Knight (1874 – 1953) is best known for his arresting paintings of dinosaurs and other long-vanished beasts. In the April issue of Scientific American, anthropologist and science historian Richard Milner--author of Charles R. Knight: The Artist Who Saw Through Time --explores the experiences that shaped Knight as an artist and the influence his work had on science and popular culture. This slide show presents a selection of images from the book depicting both living animals and extinct ones.