The sun's recent funk, color-changing squid, lab-grown glands, giant Martian volcanoes, the rosy side of feeling blue, and more in the November 2 issue.
November 2, 2013
Damian Davalos/Flickr
- Reviews & Previews
My Brief History
If all physicists could explain their work as well as Stephen Hawking explained black holes in his 1988 best seller A Brief History of Time, science writers would have to find other work. The British theorist’s new book proves that he is nearly as adept at writing about himself. - Reviews & Previews
Humans’ living creations put on display
The Center for PostNatural History, a museum that opened in 2012, features Freckles and other organisms altered by humans. - Reviews & Previews
Our Final Invention
Computers already make all sorts of decisions for you. Imagine if the machines controlled even more aspects of life and could truly think for themselves. - The –est
Oldest pitch-drop experiment
The allure of pitch — a black tarlike hydro-carbon by-product of distilling petroleum, wood or coal — comes from its split personality: It shatters from a quick hit with a hammer, but flows if set aside for long periods. - It's Alive
The colorful lives of squid
Your calamari, it turns out, may have come from a temporary transvestite with rainbows in its armpits. - Science Visualized
A grander canyon on Mars
Hebes Chasma, a huge trough on Mars, reflects the Red Planet’s tumultuous and varied past. - Feature
Quiet maximum
By almost any measure, this solar maximum has been pathetic. No more than 67 sunspots have appeared in a month so far; at the last peak, in 2000, that number was above 120. - Feature
The bright side of sadness
Bad moods can have unappreciated mental upsides. - People
Nobel’s sharp cuts
Gerald Guralnik was home when he learned online that physicists François Englert and Peter Higgs had won the Nobel Prize in physics for formulating the same theory he had proposed nearly 50 years ago. - News in Brief
Water seen in rubble around star
Hubble sees debris that was part of an asteroid with the ingredients for habitable planets.