One day the banana is perfect- bright yellow, firm, flavourful. But even within the same day, brown spots can appear on your perfectly ripe banana. Its flesh turns mushy and it's destined for the compost or at best banana bread. But scientists are de...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Camouflage face paint can make a soldier invisible to enemy in eyes. But it won't shield him from the shearing heat of a roadside bomb, a lethal eleven hundr...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Worldwide, we know of enough uranium to power today's nuclear reactors for another hundred years according to the nuclear energy agency. But scientists say t...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I am Amy Kraft. Got a minute? Sweat potatoes contains fiber, vitamin A and calcium, but the way that scientists think they can make them even more healthful is literally shocking. Researchers found t...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Evelyn Lamb. Got a minute? Big city dwellers who need a car for less than a day can rent Zipcars by the hour. Zipcar's ads emphasize environmentalism and community. But a recent study shows most...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got a minute? Lots of animals build homes for protection. Think Beaver lodges and termite mounds. Hermit crabs, on the other hand, inhibit hand-me-down homes. But they rem...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Ian Chant. Got a minute? Having a kid changes everything from your sleep schedule to the statues of that formerly spare room. The stable of bacteria that living in women's gut is also transformed...
Five-hundred years ago, a 15-year-old Incan girl was sacrificed, along with two other children. Her mummy has now revealed that she had an active lung infection at her death. Because a technique called shotgun proteomics has been used to determine wh...
Elephants dont need cell phones to hold long distance conversations, their deep calls can travel miles. And although humans cant always hear these vocalizations because of their low frequency, elephants produce them using the same mechanism that lets...
We all create it, even if we usually dont like to think about it: waste. And the journal Science devotes its new issue to the subject. It delves into the problemshome garbage, plastics, metal, water, even everyones favorite, sludgeand discusses resea...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science, I'm Cynthia Graber, this will just take you a minute. Tea and coffee are drunk worldwide, far beyond their original ecological niches. Now it looks like another caffeinated beverage also gained popul...
Olympic athletes submit their bodies to grueling training. And then they soar around the world to meet the competition. American east coast athletes traveled five time zones to get to London. West coast athletes leapt over eight. And increased the od...
This is scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Christopher Intagliata. Got minute? You've probably noticed you're more likely to catch a cold if you pull a lot of all-nighters. But lack of sleep can also compromise your immune system's respon...
This is Scientific American sixty seconds space, I'm John Matson, got minute? Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars. Time to see where our Curiosity will take us. The control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory late in the evening of August 5...
Humans prefer to associate with other humans who share their subculture. That's why there are needing* clubs and fantacy football leagues. And it turns out that dolpins also form cliques. Researchers found that dolphins known as spongers spend most o...
