New Revelations Raise Pressure on NASA to Rename the James Webb Space Telescope

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April 05, 2022

Astronomy New Revelations Raise Pressure on NASA to Rename the James Webb Space Telescope E-mailed exchanges show the space agency's internal struggle to address pleas to change the controversial name of its latest, greatest observatory By Adam Mann

Black Holes Swarms of Black Holes at the Milky Way's Heart? Maybe Not Revisiting a controversial claim, astronomers are laying bare deep uncertainties about our understanding of galactic centers By Lyndie Chiou

Climate Change What AI Can Do for Climate Change, and What Climate Change Can Do for AI To tackle the climate crisis, artificial intelligence is becoming more open and democratic By Wai Chee Dimock

Mathematics Math in 3-D: Q&A with Abel Prize Winner Dennis Sullivan His groundbreaking work combined the mathematical field of topology with string theory By Joanna Thompson

Climate Change Carbon Removal 'Unavoidable' as Climate Dangers Grow, New IPCC Report Says But if the world relies too heavily on this strategy, it could risk overshooting targets to limit warming By Chelsea Harvey,E&E News

Cancer A Wave of New Cancer Treatments Challenges Community Oncologists to Keep Up Partnerships with top research centers, along with advanced technology, may help local doctors offer patients the latest therapies By Claudia Wallis

History 50, 100 &150 Years Ago: April 2022 Wanted: lard oil and asbestos By Mark Fischetti

Astrophysics The History of the Milky Way Comes Into Focus By dating nearly a quarter million stars, astronomers were able to reconstruct the history of our galaxy—and they say it has lived an "enormously sheltered life." By Christopher Intagliata | 02:21

Astrophysics Are Telescopes the Only Way to Find Dark Matter? If the invisible matter does not appear in experiments or particle colliders, we may have to find it in space By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Pollution The U.S. Must Take Responsibility for Nuclear Fallout in the Marshall Islands Congress needs to fund independent research on radioactive contamination and how to clean it up By Hart Rapaport,Ivana Nikolić Hughes

Epidemiology What We Know About Omicron's BA.2 Variant So Far Does the new strain sweeping the globe mean COVID will become ever more contagious? By Charles Schmidt

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 326, Issue 4

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FROM THE ARCHIVE The James Webb Space Telescope Needs to Be Renamed The successor to the Hubble currently honors a man who acquiesced to homophobic government policies during the 1950s and 1960s By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein,Sarah Tuttle,Lucianne Walkowicz,Brian Nord | March 2021

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The change of name, in my opinion, uplifts the Vera Rubin science community...The name not only inspires me to do exciting science but also reminds me that there is a responsibility to make this field a more inclusive space." Yao-Yuan Mao, Rutgers University

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