The Bodele depression at the southern edge of the Sahara is a fearsome, forsaken place. Winds howl through the nearby Tebesti Mountains and Ennedi Plateau, picking up speed as they funnel into a parched wasteland nearly the size of California. Once there was a massive freshwater lake here. Now the lake is a shrunken puddle of its former self. Across most of the landscape, there is nothing.
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Chances are, you or someone you know has had a run-in with bed bug s. It might have happened in a scrupulously clean bedroom. Or maybe it was a hotel room, office or college dorm. In the February issue of Scientific American entomologist Kenneth Haynes of the University of Kentucky explains how, after a lengthy absence, bed bugs are staging a comeback . The good news is scientists are intensively studying these insects, and their insights suggest novel ways of detecting the bugs and eradicating infestations. Some of those potential solutions are a long way off, however. In the meantime the best bet is to avoid bringing bed bugs home in the first place. I called Haynes to ask him how to do that and what to do if one suspects an infestation (eek!), among a bunch of other practical-minded questions.
[More]Scientists are still trying to understand the full purpose of sleep. But we know one thing it’s probably good for: it may help keep you on that diet.
[More]The elderly man lived by himself in a low-income apartment near Cincinnati. But he was not alone. After dark the bed bugs would emerge from his recliner and tattered box-spring mattress to feed on his blood. Judging from the thousands of insects I found in his home, I would venture that it had been this way for many months. Imprisoned by poverty and infirmity, the man had nourished generations of these pests, enduring their bites night after night while their numbers swelled.
[More]The Martian rovers Opportunity and Spirit have represented optimism, hope and even cuteness to millions of people dreaming about discoveries on the Red Planet.
[More]On September 11, 2001, Elizabeth A. Phelps stepped outside her apartment in lower Manhattan and noticed a man staring toward the World Trade Center, about two miles away. Looking up, “I just saw this big, burning hole,” Phelps recalls. The man told her that he had just seen a large airplane crash into one of the skyscrapers. Thinking it was a horrible accident, Phelps started walking to work, a few blocks away, for a 9 a.m. telephone meeting. By the time she reached her eighth-floor office at New York University, a second jet had struck the other tower, which collapsed after an hour. Later, she saw the remaining tower fall.
[More]You may have never personally caught sight of Jesus Christ’s face in a potato chip, but you have likely succumbed to an equally improbable belief at some point in your life. Many people claim that ghosts exist or that their dreams can predict the future. Some individuals even think they have seen the face of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich and Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun.
[More]For shift workers, odd hours usually mean strange sleeping habits and unhealthy meals. And now an editorial in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine takes the position that unhealthy eating associated with unusual working hours could be considered a new form of occupational hazard. Because such eating is a risk factor for obesity and diabetes. [" Poor Diet in Shift Workers: A New Occupational Health Hazard? "]
[More]I am dreaming of a white Christmas. Certainly, they were rare in Saint Louis where I grew up.
[More]Researchers in nanomedicine have long dreamed of an age when molecular-scale computing devices could be embedded in our bodies to monitor health and treat diseases before they progress. The advantage of such computers, which would be made of biological materials, would lie in their ability to speak the biochemical language of life.
[More]I moved my eyes, and I realized that I was asleep in bed. When I saw the beautiful landscape start to blur, I thought to myself, “This is my dream; I want it to stay!” And the scene reappeared. Then I thought to myself how nice it would be to gallop through this landscape. I got myself a horse … I could feel myself riding the horse and lying in bed at the same time.
[More]In the December issue of Scientific American, author David Weinberger reports from the frontiers of knowledge. His story " The Machine That Would Predict the Future " explores the promise of the FuturICT project , an attempt to build a computer model of all the social, economic, ecological and scientific factors at play in the world. Weinberger is one of our most incisive thinkers about the digital age, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society , the author of books such as Small Pieces Loosely Joined (Basic Books, 2002), Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (Times Books, 2007), and the upcoming Too Big to Know (Basic Books). Technology editor Michael Moyer caught up with him at the Forum d'Avignon (by phone, sadly) to talk about his upcoming book, his December article and the future of knowledge.
[More]Sleep helps us consolidate our memories. Sleep also helps us learn. During REM sleep, which is the dreaming stage of sleep, the brain stops releasing stress chemicals. Now a new study finds that as we dream we can even soothe our stressful associations to certain experiences.
[More]When speaking about science to scientists, there is one thing that can be said that will almost always raise their indignation, and that is that science is inherently political and that the practice of science is a political act . Science, they will respond, has nothing to do with politics. But is that true?
[More]'Tis the season for giving thanks and sharing blame. The supercomittee, the White House, "the One Percent," Greece, Italy -- the accusations seem to be swirling everywhere this fall. So in the spirit of sharing guilt, we thought it might be fun to ask a physician, Dr. Howard Markel of the University of Michigan, to help us re-examine a more classic case of finger-pointing: Is turkey the sole culprit behind our drowsy spells after Thanksgiving dinner? Or are other side dishes in on the act, too? [More]
We recognize Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver by his commanding presence, his stoicism and the absence of his left leg, cut off below the hip. Although we think we know the roguish Silver, characters such as he are not of this world, as Stevenson himself admitted in Longman’s Magazine in 1884. He described fictional characters as being like circles--abstractions. Scientists use circles to solve problems in physics, and writers and readers likewise use fictional characters to think about people in the social world.
[More]The early bird gets the worm--and may avoid skin cancer. Because a new mouse study suggests that, for humans, tanning in the mornings may be less likely to permanently damage DNA and cause skin cancer.
A mouse’s levels of the DNA-repairing protein XPA are different from ours--they peak in the morning and bottom out in the evening. Researchers exposed mice to UV radiation when their XPA was at its minimum level, around 4 a.m., and others to the same rays around 4 P.M., when XPA levels peaked.
[More]Anxiety around children's eating habits often peaks during sweets-laden holidays like Halloween, but the factors that contribute to excess weight in kids extend well beyond special occasions. Most children who are obese--now 17 percent in the U.S.--will carry that extra heft into adulthood, along with the long-term health consequences. Scientists project that today's generation of children will live shorter lives than their parents and have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and atherosclerosis. Despite diverse efforts--from First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPlate nutrition guidance changes--the number of overweight and obese children does not seem to be dropping, which has sent scientists searching for other drivers of the childhood obesity epidemic. [More]
As a young mathematician in the 1950s, Don Newman taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alongside rising star and Nobel-laureate-to-be John Nash. Newman had been struggling to solve a particular math problem: “I was ... trying to get somewhere with it, and I couldn’t and I couldn’t and I couldn’t,” he recalled.
One night Newman dreamed that he was reflecting on the problem when Nash appeared. The sleeping Newman related the details of the conundrum to Nash and asked if he knew the solution. Nash explained how to solve it. Newman awoke realizing he had the answer! He spent the next several weeks turning the insight into a formal paper, which was then published in a mathematics journal.
[More]Inspiration often seems to pop up unpredictably--in the shower, on a long walk or even at the grocery store. But one place I never expect it is during sleep. I tend to think of myself as a computer: at bedtime I power myself down with teeth brushing and pillow fluffing, and soon enough my brain switches off.
That analogy, however, is dead wrong. Your sleeping brain has simply entered an alternative mode of thinking, as psychologist Deirdre Barrett writes in “ Answers in Your Dreams .” With your eyes closed and limbs immobilized, your brain spins fanciful webs of ideas that your waking mind might have filtered out. In that rich environment, your creativity and problem-solving skills can blossom.
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