News
Winning a Nobel Prize can be a life-changing event. The winners are thrust onto a world stage, and for many scientists the recognition represents the pinnacle of their careers. But what is the effect of winning such a high-profile prize on science? John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University, wants to find out. Awards like…
Evelyn Fox Keller, a theoretical physicist, a mathematical biologist and, beginning in the late 1970s, a feminist theorist who explored the way gender pervades and distorts scientific inquiry, died on Sept. 22 at an assisted living home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 87. Her children, Jeffrey and Sarah Keller, confirmed the death. They did not…
You know, one of the absolute worst feelings in the world is when you get that creepy sensation that someone is spying on you. It’s just so unsettling, whether it’s happening in real life or online. I mean, seriously, who wants to be watched without their permission, right? That’s why it’s important for us to…
After record-breaking rains swamped the subway, grounded flights and flooded streets in New York City and the surrounding region on Friday, New Yorkers resumed their routines the next morning. Rain showers continued on Saturday, putting some areas at risk of further flooding, but they were expected to taper off by the evening. On Saturday morning,…
How to spice up your Amazon Alexa device Feel like your smart home assistant needs a bit of an upgrade? Kurt “The CyberGuy” Knutsson shares steps on how you can change your Amazon Alexa’s name and accent. Ever felt that your smart home assistant’s voice doesn’t quite match your aesthetic or mood? Well, Alexa is…
Hunter-gatherer societies on the Iberian Peninsula were making sophisticated baskets with decorative geometric patterns 9,500 years ago, more than 2,000 years earlier than previously thought, researchers in Spain have reported. The researchers also said that sandals that were found in the same cave as the baskets represent the “earliest and most diverse set of plant-based…
Gabrielle Glaze felt scolded and shamed when she delivered her first son in a Birmingham, Ala., hospital, forced to observe strict rules about lying stationary through her contractions and enduring countless cervical checks from “total strangers” who seemed disappointed by her body’s progress. So when Ms. Glaze, 33, gave birth to a second son in…
In her basement on the South Side of Chicago, Crystal Vance beamed a flashlight onto the water source for her home: a rusted and leaking lead pipe. Ms. Vance, 35, knows well the dangers of lead contamination. Her 5-year-old son tested for elevated levels of lead as a baby, something that still weighs on her…
It has never been easy for Mary Cole to support herself and the 19-year-old grandson who lives with her in Bristol, Va., on her monthly $914 Supplemental Security Income check. But it’s getting harder. “I’ve been struggling a lot,” Ms. Cole said. Because benefits counselors at her local agency on aging have helped her apply…
“You can have a rainy day where you get less than a tenth of an inch per hour, but today’s rainfall was more than 10 times that amount,” he said. And in a paved-over city with absorption problems, that makes all the difference. Fall in the Northeast, when hurricane remnants and nor’easters increasingly come through,…
