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Blood-Red Moon: Total Lunar Eclipse Photos from Readers
Scientific American readers snapped these views of the October 8 total lunar eclipse from the United States and Australia
October 12, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

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Petra de Ruyter · 8 days ago
Lunar Eclipse 8:10:2014 Albury Australia
Awesome experience! Is almost the same experience that you have viewing a total eclipse of the sun. Reminds me of how early astronomers discovered that the Earth was round. Beautiful to see the curvature of the Earth on the Moon.

A coppery moon graced skies around the world early Wednesday morning, and many Scientific American readers got a great view. Below are some of the best reader photos of the October 8, 2014 total lunar eclipse, when the moon briefly passed into the shadow Earth cast. During a total lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are 180 degrees apart, on either side of our planet. The sun's bending rays travel through our atmosphere to reach the darkened moon, giving it a reddish hue. These impressive photos came from around the United States and Australia.

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Quarantines and Travel Bans: Could They Work to Thwart Ebola?
What rules are in place to prevent pandemics?
October 16, 2014 |By David Biello

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TRAVEL BAN: Should those suspected of harboring Ebola be prevented from traveling?
Courtesy of NASA

Thomas Eric Duncan’s family has been imprisoned in a borrowed home for a few weeks now, purportedly under police guard. This quarantine is an attempt to keep any Ebola virus from spreading further after their loved one died of the disease on October 8.

That quarantine has not been applied to hospital workers who came into contact with Duncan on either ...

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Why Have Our Brains Started to Shrink?
—via e-mail
Oct 16, 2014

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Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist and research leader on human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, replies:

Indeed, skeletal evidence from every inhabited continent suggests that our brains have become smaller in the past 10,000 to 20,000 years. How can we account for this seemingly scary statistic?

Some of the shrinkage is very likely related to the decline in humans' average body size during the past 10,000 years. Brain size is scaled to body size because ...

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What’s Your Favorite Vintage Gadget?
Share your nostalgia for a long-obsolete device with other Scientific American readers
October 15, 2014 |By Larry Greenemeier

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Atari 800 XL Rijeka P&P
Wikimedia Commons/Roberta F.

Few technologies of the past 25 years have had more of an impact on our lives than the cell phone. Twenty years ago, a friend offered to lend me hers because I was having car trouble. She was worried I would get stuck on the side of the highway on my way home from work with no way of calling for help. Such concern about being unable to communicate now seems quaint. Like many people, I’m rarely without my smartphone these days, and it does a whole lot more than call for roadside assistance.

Such progress makes me nostalgic for the gadgets of yesterday that once ...

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Did Jesus Save the Klingons?
If or when we make contact with extraterrestrials, the effect on our religious sensibilities will be profound, says astronomer David Weintraub
October 16, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

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The discovery of life beyond Earth would be a triumph for science but might wreak havoc on certain religions. Some faiths, such as evangelical Christianity, have long held that we are God’s favorite children and would not easily accommodate the notion that we would have to share the attention; others, such as Roman Catholicism, struggle with thorny questions such as whether aliens have original sin.

Now that researchers have discovered more than 1,500 exoplanets beyond the solar system, the day when scientists detect signs of life on one of them may be near at hand. Given this new urgency, Vanderbilt University astronomer David Weintraub decided to find out what ...

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Are U.S. Hospitals Prepared for the Next Ebola Case?
Health care emergency management expert Kristin Stevens tells us what went wrong in Dallas, and how we can do better
October 23, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

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CDC Global via <a href=https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdcglobal/14723720857/in/set-72157646018355339>Flickr</a>

The first U.S. Ebola patient who walked into an emergency room last month posed a major test for the chosen hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. The hospital made some now-notorious missteps, including failing to diagnose Ebola virus the first time the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, arrived as well as allowing two nurses who treated him to become infected.

In the aftermath of the case the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidelines for health care workers’ protective gear, called personal protective equipment (PPE), which was probably at fault for the nurses’ infections. Hospitals around the country are on alert for more cases of the Ebola virus, which has ..

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The Hobbit: 10 Years Later
In October 2004 paleontologists announced a new human species called Homo floresiensis. Ever since then debate has raged on whether it truly is a new species or merely a diseased Homo sapiens
Oct 23, 2014

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New analyses reveal the mini human species to be even stranger than previously thought and hint that major tenets of human evolution need revision

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How to Silence Cyberbullying
Cyberbullies take advantage of the unique psychology of online communities to attack, intimidate and hurt others. Here is what makes trolls tick— and how to stop them
By Elizabeth Svoboda

When 25-year-old Caitlin Seida dressed up as Lara Croft from the movie Tomb Raider one Halloween, she posted a picture of herself enjoying the night's festivities on Facebook. At most, she figured a few friends might see the photograph and comment.

The picture remained in Seida's social circle for more than three years. Then one day in 2013 a friend sent Seida a link with a cryptic note: “You're Internet famous.” Clicking the link took her to a site called the International Association of Haters, where her Halloween photo—which she had posted publicly by mistake—bore the oversized caption “Fridge Raider.” Hundreds of commenters dragged Seida through the mud for wearing a skimpy costume ...

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Motor Chills EV Drivers’ Anxiety about Going the Distance
By Larry Greenemeier | October 22, 2014 | Comments2

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Lead developer Satheesh Kumar holds components of his team's 2-in-1 electric motor. Image courtesy of Nanyang Technological University.

An air-conditioned cabin is the best way to drop a car’s fuel efficiency on a hot day. This is true of electric vehicles (EV) as much as it is for gas-guzzlers. Researchers in Singapore, who know something about hot-weather driving, say they’ve found a way to help an EV to run up to 20 percent longer between recharges during air-conditioning use.

Their idea: a “2-in-1 electric motor” that consolidates the air-conditioning compressor into the same housing as the main traction motor powering the vehicle’s wheels. This creates efficiencies and frees up additional space for auxiliary batteries to power ...

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Not Everyone Wants to Be Happy
Americans are obsessed with happiness, but other cultures see things differently
October 28, 2014 |By Jennifer Aaker and Emily Esfahani Smith

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Don't worry, be unhappy
Credit: Thinkstock

Everyone wants to be happy. It's a fundamental human right. It's associated with all sorts of benefits. We, as a society, spend millions trying to figure out what the key to personal happiness is. There are now even apps to help us turn our frowns upside down. So everyone wants to be happy—right?

Well, maybe not.

A new research paper by Mohsen Joshanloo and Dan Weijers from Victoria University of Wellington, argues that the desire for personal happiness, though knitted into the fabric of American history and culture, is held in less esteem by other cultures. There are many parts of the world that are more suspicious of personal happiness ...

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Cocoa Constitutents Fend Off Senior Moments—the Memory of a 30-Year-Old?
By Gary Stix | October 26, 2014 | Comments4

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Memory dust?

Scott Small, a professor of neurology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, researches Alzheimer’s, but he also studies the memory loss that occurs during the normal aging process. Research on the commonplace “senior moments” focuses on the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved with formation of new memories. In particular, one area of the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, which helps distinguish one object from another, has lured researchers on age-related memory problems.

In a study by Small and colleagues published Oct. 26 in Nature Neuroscience, naturally occurring chemicals in cocoa increased dentate gyrus blood flow. Psychological testing showed that the pattern recognition abilities of a typical 60-year-old on a high dose of the cocoa phytochemicals in the 37-person study matched those of a 30-or 40-year old after three months. The study received support from ...

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Evidence Builds for Dark Matter Explosions at the Milky Way’s Core
Unexplained gamma rays streaming from the galactic center may have been produced by dark matter, but more mundane explanations are also possible
October 28, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

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This Fermi map of the Milky Way center shows an overabundance of gamma-rays (red indicates the greatest number) that cannot be explained by conventional sources.
T. Linden, Univ. of Chicago

So far, dark matter has evaded scientists’ best attempts to find it. Astronomers know the invisible stuff dominates our universe and tugs gravitationally on regular matter, but they do not know what it is made of. Since 2009, however, suspicious gamma-ray light radiating from the Milky Way’s core—where dark matter is thought to be especially dense—has intrigued researchers. Some wonder if the rays might have been emitted in explosions caused by colliding particles of dark matter. Now a new gamma-ray signal, in combination with those already detected, offers further evidence that this might be the case.

One possible explanation for dark matter is that it is made of theorized “weakly interacting massive particles,” or WIMPs. Every WIMP is thought to be both matter and antimatter, so when two of them meet ...

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Unmanned Supply Rocket Explodes Seconds after Liftoff
Orbital Sciences’s Antares rocket burst into flames mere moments into its mission to send a cargo-carrying spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station. NASA reported no injuries to personnel
October 28, 2014 |By Mike Wall and SPACE.com

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An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded shortly after lifting off on a private cargo mission to the International Space Station, on October 28, 2014, from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
NASA TV

A private Orbital Sciences-built cargo launch to the International Space Station ended in a fiery explosion just seconds after liftoff Tuesday night (Oct. 28).

Orbital's unmanned Antares rocket exploded in a brilliant fireball shortly after launching from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 6:22 p.m. EDT (2222 GMT), crashing back down to the launch pad in a flaming heap. The Antares was carrying Orbital's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft, which was toting 5,000 pounds (2,268 kilograms) of food, scientific experiments and other supplies on this flight — the third cargo mission to the space station under a $1.9 billion contract the company holds with NASA. You can see photos of the Antares rocket explosion here.

A NASA spokesman described the explosion as a "catastrophic anomaly" during a NASA TV webcast. While the assessment and investigation ...

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The Science of Death and Zombies
Forget about eating braaains—there's no coming back from the dead. But it's possible for minds to be taken over
Oct 30, 2014

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Ask the Experts
Can You Escape Zombies If You Smell Like Death?
A chemist explains why a "death cologne" could protect you if the ravenous undead attack this Halloween.

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Inside the 4 U.S. Biocontainment Hospitals That Are Stopping Ebola [Video]
Four small but well-equipped wards across the U.S. provide a front line of treatment for highly infectious diseases and bioterrorism attacks
October 24, 2014 |By Katherine Harmon Courage

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A hospital ICU room.
Credit: Quinn Dombrowski via flickr

When a new, highly infectious disease lands on U.S. shores, four unique treatment centers stand ready to contain and treat it. Sprinkled across the east coast, Midwest and Rocky Mountain west, these "biocontainment units" inside larger facilities have been funded and tapped by the federal government to take patients who could otherwise fuel a devastating epidemic.

These centers made the news in August as Ebola patients began to arrive in the U.S. Of these, three patients have been treated at Emory University Hospital (Kent Brantly, Nancy Writebol and a doctor who ...

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