CO2 Level to Reach 400, Soon Enough
Above all else, Charles D. Keeling was fastidious with his data. A couple of years ago, I found myself on assignment at Mauna Loa Observatory, the U.S. weather station perched just below the summit...
View ArticleGeologists Chip Away at Mystery of Climate’s Influence on Volcanoes
David Ferguson and his colleague Sebastian Watt (above) learned a lot from Chilean road cuts, some striated with layers of basaltic scoria. If there’s a lesson David Ferguson has learned in his early...
View ArticleBending the Curve on a Long War’s Mental Toll
Washington — The annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, held here over the Memorial Day weekend, presented plenty of worry for those concerned over the field’s recent,...
View ArticleThere Is No Gene for Finishing College
A couple of years ago, Daniel J. Benjamin, a behavioral economist and associate professor at Cornell University, noticed a disturbing trend in genoeconomics, the nascent discipline that seeks to tie...
View ArticleClaims of Detection Confuse Hunt for Football’s Brain-Trauma Disease
For football fans, there is no time longer than the two weeks, in late January, between the NFL’s conference-championship games and the Super Bowl. It’s a news wasteland, a long pause in the...
View ArticleHigh in Sky, a Refrain: ‘Squawk, Data’
A red kite, sans blog. Copyright Sean Gray Like any young adult moving to a strange new land—a common occurrence at this time of year—Wyvis, a resident of Scotland, took to blogging about her new home...
View ArticleHallucinations Happen, and That Can Be OK
One hallmark of the revolution in psychiatric research begun by the National Institute of Mental Health, as I explored in The Chronicle Review last week, is the sliding scale of the many symptoms...
View ArticleIn Vancouver, a Young Science Confronts Its Limits
Black rockfish Consider, if you will, the black rockfish. Its skin a mottled black-gray, its belly white, and its dorsal fin spiny, the black rockfish is a saltwater species of unremarkable size and...
View ArticleA Disease Ecologist and His Discontents
The white-footed mouse, a favored home of the Lyme bacterium. Copyright John White If we save the animals, do we, in the end, save ourselves? There is so much nature can do for us. It can clean our...
View ArticleWhat’s Driving Human Evolution Now?
Sterling Hayden as Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper (left), with Peter Sellers as Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake in Dr. Strangelove (Photo from Wikimedia Commons) Last year, when Sir David Attenborough, the...
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