Issue_88
18 articles-
How Rising Education for Women Is Shaping the Global Population
In their 1968 book The Population Bomb, biologists Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne foretold a Malthusian future of famine and disease if humanity failed to control its growth. The Ehrlichs’ warning made sense. At the time, the global population sat at about 3.5 billion, and its rate of growth was 2.1 percent—close to the […] -
3-D Printed Statues in Central Park Shine a Light on Women Scientists
A new exhibit in Central Park features six statues of women scientists—the first statues of real women to be found in the park.Courtesy of Lyda Hill Philanthropies’ IF/THEN Initiative Forged in metal or chiseled in stone, statues almost always depict dead men. A recent analysis of 12 major American cities turned up only six physical […] -
This Vision Experiment Resolved a Centuries-Old Philosophical Debate
“We conclude,” the researchers wrote, “that objects have a remarkably persistent dual character: their objective shape ‘out there,’ and their perspectival shape ‘from here.’”Photograph by Ryan DeBerardinis / Shutterstock Imagine you are looking at a manhole cover a few paces away on the street. It looks circular, but this is because of some impressive perceptual […] -
Sex Is Driven by the Impetus to Change
Hooking up is nature’s way for a species to overcome a bad genomic match. -
We Don’t Have to Despair
Medical research director Eric Topol sees light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.
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The Anonymous Culture Cops of the Internet
This sort of research can, piece by piece, help reshape the online landscape so it isn’t quite so tribal and awash in misinformation and vitriol.Photograph by Prostock-studio / Shutterstock Giant tech companies and governments largely determine what content is and isn’t allowed online, and their decisions impact billions of people: 55 percent of internet users […]
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Sexless in the City
Together, the data imply that the post-pandemic cityscape may be less sexy than the countryside.Photograph by Tero Vesalainen / Shutterstock The pandemic is making its way into every corner of our lives—even the bedroom. While many parts of the world gradually return to normal, the United States still wrestles with the fallout of a mismanaged […]
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Your Romantic Ideals Don’t Predict Who Your Future Partner Will Be
Why birds of a feather don’t flock together for long.
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Gender Is What You Make of It
Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and the relationship that changed social science.
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The Case for Rapid At-Home COVID Testing for Everyone
The time it takes to ship COVID test samples to central labs and back is a burden—people risk infection as they wait days, sometimes weeks, for results.Photograph by MIA Studio / Shutterstock Imagine that every morning your child and her classmates take a COVID-19 test that offers results within a half hour, showing the transmission […] -
The Price of Life Is Death, but Sex Improves the Exchange Rate
Calculating the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens. -
Eels Don’t Have Sex Until the Last Year of Their Life
Why eels are one strange fish. -
You Want to See My Data? I Thought We Were Friends!
“Science is probably the best thing humans ever invented. Academia, on the other hand…” -
Your Brain in Love
Anthropologist Helen Fisher tells us what the biology of love is.
