2017-12-14 所属栏目:科学美国人

You know those nutrition guidelines the government issues every few years? It turns out that following them isn’t just good for your health. It’s good for the planet, t

2017-12-13 所属栏目:科学美国人

When you look at satellite images it’s easy to pick out hurricanes, deserts, and the work of a certain semiaquatic rodent:

“And the reason you can see beaver activity

2017-12-12 所属栏目:科学美国人

Picture a women’s crew team. Training 18 hours and covering 75 miles in an average week, these athletes are pretty ripped. Yet they don’t hold a bicep to prehistoric fe

2017-12-12 所属栏目:科学美国人

Predators like wolves affect their ecosystems by eating their prey. But a more subtle impact involves fear. Predators also terrify prey species. And when, for example, elk are hidi

2017-12-11 所属栏目:科学美国人

Coqu&iacute; frogs. They&rsquo;re named for the sound they make. <Sound> And though just an inch long, a coqui can produce a 90-decibel call—about the volume of a motorcycle

2017-12-11 所属栏目:科学美国人

Hospitals can be extremely noisy places. <CLIP: hospital noise>

In fact, quietness is one of the lowest-rated categories on national surveys of hospital quality. And: "We know the

2017-12-08 所属栏目:科学美国人

“In the United States we spend about $160 billion a year on R&D. And so for the last seven years we&rsquo;ve spent about a trillion dollars. With about 250,000 inventions tha

2017-12-07 所属栏目:科学美国人

In The Hunt for Red October, the Soviet submarine captain played by Sean Connery commands his crew to verify the location of a target. <<MOVIE CLIP: "Give me a ping Vasily. One pin

2017-12-06 所属栏目:科学美国人

The Yeti. Also known as the abominable snowman. It&rsquo;s a legendary primate some people believe exists in the Himalayas and adjacent freezing lands. But what do you get when you

2017-12-04 所属栏目:科学美国人

Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who heads the House science committee, has long been skeptical of global warming. He has accused government climate scientists o

2017-12-04 所属栏目:科学美国人

“I think it&rsquo;s really important for us to use this magical power of invention and innovation to change the lives of people who really needed their lives changed.”

2017-12-01 所属栏目:科学美国人

“You know how it is when you&rsquo;re driving behind a car and you notice the bumper sticker, and you think to yourself &lsquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s that kind of person&rsquo; or, &

2017-11-30 所属栏目:科学美国人

<alert hoo recording>

That means danger—to a chimpanzee. Chimps use this call, known as an "alert hoo," to warn each other about a potential threat, like a dangerous snake o

2017-11-29 所属栏目:科学美国人

Honeybees. They have a difficult task. First, they have to find food. Then they have to return to the hive to tell their compatriots where to find it. The bees have to fly back and

2017-11-27 所属栏目:科学美国人

“Whales move by beating their tails.”

Paolo Segre is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford.

“And they&rsquo;ve got these large muscular tails, which they can mo

2017-11-27 所属栏目:科学美国人

Wisconsin is famous for cheese. But it's also the United States' number one producer of a tart, red fruit that&rsquo;s on pretty much every Thanksgiving dinner table.

"We have t

2017-11-23 所属栏目:科学美国人

There are now more than 16 million bitcoins in circulation, with a total market cap of 130 billion dollars—more than the market value of Netflix, Priceline or Starbucks. Just

2017-11-22 所属栏目:科学美国人

Sex. It drives people to do crazy things. Animals, too. They&rsquo;ll make unsettling sounds, perform complex dances or show off giant plumes of colorful feathers. And, famously, s

2017-11-21 所属栏目:科学美国人

The square footage of a home tends to be a measure of wealth. Compare the sizes of dwellings in a city and you'll get begin to get a picture of rich and poor, and how wealth is di

2017-11-20 所属栏目:科学美国人

Feathers are not just for flight. They keep birds warm, become part of their nests, and help them attract mates. And for one Australian bird, feathers even help produce an importan

2017-11-17 所属栏目:科学美国人

Animal astronauts have included monkeys, dogs, mice, and even fruit flies. Most are fondly remembered, except maybe the flies. Laika the dog has a monument in her honor in Moscow.

2017-11-16 所属栏目:科学美国人

Baleen whales feed by opening their gigantic maws, lunging forward in the water and engulfing gallons of seawater in their mouths. They strain the seawater back through their balee

2017-11-14 所属栏目:科学美国人

The goal for a lot of tech companies today: figure out what you, their customer, want next, before you even ask. It's driven by something called similarity search.

"If you go to

2017-11-13 所属栏目:科学美国人

Here&rsquo;s one of the stranger celebrity sightings out there: Researchers have confirmed that sheep can recognize the actors Emma Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal.

"Yeah I think it'

2017-11-10 所属栏目:科学美国人

In the last two years, astronomers have found seven exoplanets around the star TRAPPIST-1, only 40 light-years away. As well as a planet called Proxima b, orbiting Proxima Centaur