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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/authored/id/76
Searching Authored by Tom Siegfried 
30 matches found
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This essay is part of Demystifying the Mind, a special report on the new science of consciousness. The next installments will appear in the February 25 and March 10 issues of Science News.When Francis Crick decided to embark on a scientific research career, he chose his specialty by applying the “gossip test.” He’d noticed that he liked to gossip about two especially hot topics in the 1940s — the molecular basis for heredity and the mysteries of the brain. He decided to tackle biology’s molecules first. By 1953, with collaborator James Watson (and aided by data from competitor Ro... (p. 28)Published: February 11th, 2012; Vol.181 #3Found in: Body & Brain -
It turns out that the old adage about statistics and damned lies wasn’t a joke. Sticks and stones may be bonebreakers, and words inflict no (physical) pain, but numbers can kill. In 2004, for instance, a statistical analysis suggested that antidepressant drugs raised the risk of suicide in youngsters and adolescents, leading the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require a “black box” warning label. And guess what happened? Suicide rates among kids went up. It seems likely that the dramatic warning discouraged some kids from taking the drugs they needed, later studies suggested. Not o...Published: 2011-10-19 15:29:12
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Ernest Rutherford grew up in the 19th century. He created the 20th. No discovery struck deeper into the scientific understanding of reality, with more profound implications for civilization, than Rutherford’s revelation of the architecture of the atom. A century ago in May, Rutherford published a paper in the Philosophical Magazine interpreting experiments completed two years earlier by his assistants Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden. They had witnessed the atomic equivalent, as Rutherford later described it, of an artillery shell bouncing backwards off of tissue paper. It was astounding, u... (p. 30)Published: May 7th, 2011; Vol.179 #10 -
(p. 20)Published: April 23rd, 2011; Vol.179 #9
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Of all the mysteries of life and the universe, none resist the sleuthing of science’s best private eyes more obstinately than the ultimate nature of space and time. Every several centuries or so, profound insights do occur, immortalizing the names of the investigators who achieved them: Euclid (who cataloged the insights preceding him), Galileo, Newton, Einstein. Yet each advance left deeper questions unanswered. And now the 21st century’s best brains still cannot say for sure whether space and time are fundamental building blocks of natural existence, or are themselves built from mor... (p. 28)Published: April 23rd, 2011; Vol.179 #9 -
Home / News / December 4th, 2010; Vol.178 #12 / Mom's past drug abuse may alter brain chemistry of offspringA new study in rats suggests that the lingering effects of adolescent opiate use may be passed on for two generations, even if the female is drug-free when she gets pregnant. (p. 14)Published: December 4th, 2010; Vol.178 #12Found in: Body & Brain
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Home / Blogs / On the Scene / On the Scene : Three scientists, three wishes (with extras for the cosmologist)Research luminaries reveal the questions they'd most like to see answered.Published: 2010-11-08 17:32:15Found in: Atom & Cosmos, Earth and Genes & Cells
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Schrödinger’s cat was born 75 years ago. Its date of death remains uncertain. Science’s most famous feline remains perpetually both alive and dead, a mythological zombie symbolizing an enduring enigma at the heart of modern physics. It’s an imaginary cat, of course, invented by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to emphasize the weirdness of quantum mechanics, the mathematical constitution governing the microworld. An experiment could be devised, Schrödinger showed, to put a cat in a box into a live-dead limbo (technically, a “superposition” of states) until somebod... (p. 15)Published: November 20th, 2010; Vol.178 #11 -
Home / Features / November 20th, 2010; Vol.178 #11 / Like fate of cat, quantum debate is still unresolvedRead features from the special edition Articles in the Quantum special issue. | Go Download a PDF of the special edition Exclusive for Science News subscribers. Download | Subscribe In the tapestry of 20th century physics, virtually every major thread is entangled with the name of Albert Einstein. He was most famous for the theory of relativity, of course, which rewrote Newton’s laws and set modern theoretical cosmology in motion. But Einstein also played a major role in the origins of quantum theory and in perceiving its weird implications — including entanglement,... (p. 2)Published: November 20th, 2010; Vol.178 #11
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Quantum weirdness Some key concepts in quantum mechanics lead to rather startling results. In the quantum world, objects can be in two states at once and the outcomes of experiments can change depending on when, how and how often scientists make their measurements. Double-slit experiment An electron can be either a wave or a particle depending on the design of the experiment. If electrons pass through a single slit in a barrier and then strike a phosphorescent screen, they make patterns indicating the arrival of particles. But if two slits are available, an electron “wave” interferes... (p. 20)Published: November 20th, 2010; Vol.178 #11
