Consciousness Is a Continuum, and Scientists Are Starting to Measure It

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

    

February 02, 2024

Consciousness Consciousness Is a Continuum, and Scientists Are Starting to Measure It A new technique helps anesthesiologists track changes in states of consciousness By Christian Guay,Emery Brown

Health Care Elon Musk's Neuralink Has Implanted Its First Chip in a Human Brain. What's Next? The wealthiest person on Earth has taken the next step toward a commercial brain interface By Ben Guarino

Astronomy Here Are the Best Places to View the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Weather predictions and population statistics show the best spots to see the total solar eclipse over North America this April By Katie Peek

Public Health Cleaning Water Naturally the Ancient Maya Way The ancestral Maya lived in better harmony with the environment and kept water clean naturally. We can learn from them By Lisa J. Lucero

Animals Do Cats Experience FOMO? Feline experts weigh in on clingy cats' supposed "fear of missing out" By Niranjana Rajalakshmi

Climate Change The Roman Empire's Worst Plagues Were Linked to Climate Change Changes in the climate may have caused disruptions to Roman society that manifested as disease outbreaks, researchers have found By Tom Metcalfe

Paleontology New 'Chicken from Hell' Discovered A newly identified "chicken from hell" species suggests dinosaurs weren't sliding toward extinction before the fateful asteroid hit By Kyle Atkins-Weltman,Eric Snively,The Conversation US

Neurology Growth Hormone Injections May Have 'Seeded' Alzheimer's in Some People, Study Suggests Injections of no-longer-used growth hormone derived from cadavers may have "seeded" Alzheimer's in some people, small study suggests By Carissa Wong,Nature magazine

Mathematics These Numbers Look Random but Aren't, Mathematicians Prove A new mathematical proof helps show whether a sequence of numbers is "pseudorandom" By Christopher Lutsko

Public Health Disinformation Is the Real Threat to Democracy and Public Health Disinformation abounds, and it can kill. Fortunately, it can often be unambiguously identified By Stephan Lewandowsky,Sander van der Linden,Andy Norman

Psychology The Secret to Accomplishing Big Goals Lies in Breaking Them into Flexible, Bite-Size Chunks Subgoals can make all the difference when ambitious targets seem too daunting By Aneesh Rai,Marissa Sharif,Edward Chang,Katy Milkman,Angela Duckworth

Anthropology Ancient Jewelry Shows Ice Age Europe Had 9 Distinct Cultures Prehistoric artifacts used in jewelry, such as beads made from shells, amber and ivory, have shed light on the cultural groups that were present in Europe tens of thousands of years ago By Sarah Wild

BRING SCIENCE HOME The Tower of Hanoi Tricky towers: see how math can help solve this age-old pattern puzzle Credit: George Retseck Are you tired of math work sheets and homework? Did you know that there are more creative ways to exercise your mathematical muscle? A lot of games, puzzles and riddles revolve around mathematical concepts. Think about simple games such as tic-tac-toe, more strategic games such as chess or math puzzles such as sudoku. People have been playing these games and puzzles for centuries! They are fun, entertaining and sometimes useful. See how you enjoy this one.

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add newsletters@scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us

Scientific American

1 New York Plaza, FDR Dr, Floor 46, New York, NY 10004

Unsubscribe - Unsubscribe Preferences