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Science Friday is your trusted source for news and entertaining stories about science.
SciFri Book Club Open Thread: ‘The Andromeda Strain’
Here are some ideas to get the conversation started.
The Minimalist Brain
Artist Greg Dunn combines his two passions: neuroscience and Asian-inspired painting.
Water on Mars, Sea Creatures, NFL Concussions
Once more, lots of intriguing stories making the news this week. Here are a few of my favorites.
An Illustrated Guide to the Mysterious
In a new book, artists illustrate the big (and not-so-big) questions in science.
Researchers Dig In to the Genetics of Burrowing
Complex behaviors, such as the way some mice dig burrows, can be affected by changes to just a handful of genes.
A Spider Charade
The octopus may be the king of camouflage, but if there’s an animal whose name is synonymous with deception, it’s the spider.
Cyberspace Sneaking: Sending Secret Messages Via Skype
Polish researchers have devised a way to send encrypted messages using Skype.
What 17 Months in Isolation Looks Like (On a Mars Mission)
For 520 days, six men lived together in a simulated mission to Mars. Here’s what their home away from home looked like.
Arctic Research: Carhartts, Polar Bears, and Duct Tape
What does a modern Arctic explorer wear to work? And what does the modern explorer (mature male) do if he has to pee?
A Fallacy of Biblical Proportion
An excerpt from “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.”
Food: The Weak Link
Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold. An excerpt from “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.”
I May Have Found My Bulb!
For years I’ve been searching for the best light bulb, and I may have found it.
SciFri Book Club Catches ‘The Andromeda Strain’
The Michael Crichton classic tops the reading list.
Data Reawakening
As archivists struggle to store the mountain of data on the internet, researchers are trying to use atoms, diamonds, and DNA to let data live on forever.
The Librarians Saving The Internet
You may think that anything uploaded onto the internet is there forever—but the constant churn is a challenge to the archivists trying to backup the web.
Ghosts In The Reels
Even in this era of cloud storage, many data centers still use good, reliable magnetic tape. But as the technology develops at a faster rate, this backup is quickly becoming obsolete. What will become of the forgotten data preserved on the tape of the past?
