Week in Science: Mathematicians boycott a major conference

A weekly round-up of the biggest news in science                    

View in web browser

March 27—More than 1,500 mathematicians are boycotting their biggest conference. Plus, March temperature records have been smashed (again), an optical illusion puts a weird vision quirk on display, and, if you haven't seen the new movie Project Hail Mary yet, there's a lot of fun science to explore. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor Have thoughts? Email newsletters@sciam.com anytime.

Top Stories

Why mathematicians are boycotting their biggest conference More than 1,500 mathematicians are demanding that their field's most prestigious meeting be moved from the U.S. Joseph Howlett

Everything about this week's record-shattering western heat wave is extreme An astoundingly strong heat wave is not just setting records across the western U.S.—it's pulverizing them Andrea Thompson

Do you subscribe to Scientific American? Get a deal on a subscription and support our work.

Mathematicians can't agree on whether 0.999... equals 1 Whether 0.999... equals 1 is the subject of bitter dispute in countless online forums Manon Bischoff

Why Iran is targeting Qatar's liquid natural gas trains Why the destruction of Qatar's liquid natural gas "trains" by Iranian attacks will have global consequences Stephanie Pappas

Why the LaGuardia plane crash was so destructive Engineers explain how a collision between an Air Canada plane and a fire truck at one of New York's busiest airports turned deadly Jackie Flynn Mogensen

NASA announces nuclear-powered Mars mission by 2028 The U.S. space agency will aim to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars—a first—in a bid to show that nuclear propulsion can be used to send missions into deep space Claire Cameron

What color is this dot? New illusion demonstrates weird vision quirk An optical illusion with nine simple dots reveals a surprising amount about the eye and brain Nora Bradford

How accurate is the science in Project Hail Mary? This science-fiction movie plays with quantum physics, space travel, astrobiology and mass-to-energy conversion Emma Gometz

U.K.'s deadly meningitis outbreak shows importance of vaccination Infectious disease experts say shots against meningococcal meningitis can be lifesaving during an outbreak, but U.S. regulators have attempted to roll back recommendations of such a vaccine for children Lauren J. Young

Astronomers witness the birth of a new solar system The decades since scientists confirmed the first planet around another star have been rich in discovery, but it's rare to see a new solar system as it forms Joseph Howlett

What's the most massive star in the universe? Just how big can a star become? The answer depends on when in cosmic history you're asking the question Phil Plait

Inside NASA's audacious plan to save a doomed space telescope NASA's Swift space telescope is doomed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere later this year. A daring mission to boost it to safety could have big implications for science Meghan Bartels

Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters here. Scientific American One New York Plaza, New York, NY, 10004 Support our mission, subscribe to Scientific American here Unsubscribe  |  Preferences Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us