As interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continues to grow, a chapter in a new book presents information on how to bring the arts to STEM fields. The chapter outlines a creative exercise that used picture books to help first-year college students explore their ideas, beliefs, and humanistic impulses regarding...
Science & Technology
How Cybercriminals Turn Paper Checks Stolen from Mailboxes into Bitcoin
While cybercrime gets a lot of attention from law enforcement and the media these days, I’ve been documenting a less high-tech threat emerging in recent months: a surge in stolen checks. Criminals are increasingly targeting U.S. Postal Service and personal mailboxes to pilfer filled-out checks and sell them over the internet using social media platforms....
Matter and Antimatter Seem to Respond Equally to Gravity
As part of an experiment to measure—to an extremely precise degree—the charge-to-mass ratios of protons and antiprotons, the RIKEN-led BASE collaboration at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, has found that, within the uncertainty of the experiment, matter and antimatter respond to gravity in the same way. Matter and antimatter create some of the most interesting problems in...
Systems Scientists Find Clues to Why False News Snowballs on Social Media
The spread of misinformation on social media is a pressing societal problem that tech companies and policymakers continue to grapple with, yet those who study this issue still don’t have a deep understanding of why and how false news spreads. To shed some light on this murky topic, researchers at MIT developed a theoretical model...
Are Rocket Scientists and Brain Surgeons Really Smarter Than Everyone Else?
Rocket scientists and brain surgeons are no smarter than the general population, suggests a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. Despite the commonly used phrases “It’s not rocket science” and “It’s not brain surgery” the findings show that both aerospace engineers and neurosurgeons have similar levels of intelligence to those in the general population. As such,...
Visually Stunning Tree of All Known Life Unveiled Online
OneZoom is a one-stop site for exploring all life on Earth, its evolutionary history, and how much of it is threatened with extinction. The OneZoom explorer – available at onezoom.org – maps the connections between 2.2 million living species, the closest thing yet to a single view of all species known to science. The interactive tree of life...
Finding Their Groove: Researchers Bring Musicians, Dancers, and Robots Together for Disruptive Collaboration While Improving Human-Robot Trust
The impact of robots on human life is evident everywhere, from service sectors such as healthcare and retail, to industrial settings like automobile manufacturing. But it’s one thing to leverage robots as helpers — it’s another to connect with them emotionally, which could lead to better trust. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found...
Art Illuminates the Beauty of Science – and Could Inspire the Next Generation of Scientists Young and Old
Scientists have often invited the public to see what they see, using everything from engraved woodblocks to electron microscopes to explore the complexity of the scientific enterprise and the beauty of life. Sharing these visions through illustrations, photography and videos has allowed laypeople to explore a range of discoveries, from new bird species to the...
Electric Vehicles Dominate List of Efficient Cars in 2022 Fuel Economy Guide
As the holiday road trip season approaches and more workers are headed back to offices and daily commutes, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has released the federal government’s new 2022 Fuel Economy Guide. The report provides the latest fuel efficiency stats and money-saving tips for new and used vehicles. For the first time, two electric vehicles...
Uncovering the Secrets Behind Earth’s First Major Mass Extinction
We all know that the dinosaurs died in a mass extinction. But did you know that there were other mass extinctions? There are five most significant mass extinctions, known as the “big five,” where at least three-quarters of all species in existence across the entire Earth faced extinction during a particular geological period of time....