• Science

    A Million Plastic Balls to Halt Carcinogens

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 10.6.2008 16 Comments

    If you make a mess, just cover it up. That’s the theory behind the Department of Water and Power’s latest project in Los Angeles, which aims to prevent the formation of a carcinogen in two drinking-water sources, the Ivanhoe [pictured] and Elysian reservoirs.

  • Science

    More Bad News About Plastics

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 10.3.2008 7 Comments

    Plastic. It’s the spring in your tennis shoes, the sheath on your burrito, the skin of your air mattress . . . And, unfortunately, it could also be the hormone disruptor in your endocrine system. This is just one potential danger highlighted in the most recent issue of the journal Environmental Research, which includes a special section showcasing six new studies of the effects of plastics and plastic ingredients on the body and the earth.

  • The Environment

    Gaseous State

    By Paul Adams Posted on 9.18.2008 41 Comments

    In a lush pasture near Buenos Aires, this cow and its compatriots are digesting important information: how much methane—a greenhouse gas 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide—is released by the country’s 55 million bovines. Researchers from Argentina's National Institute of Agricultural Technology connected inflatable tanks to the cows’ first stomach, where methane is made, through a small hole between their ribs.

  • Science

    Ghost Heart

    By Paul Adams Posted on 9.23.2008 9 Comments

    In late 2005, cardiac researcher Doris Taylor revived the dead. She rinsed rat hearts with detergent until the cells washed away and all that remained was a skeleton of tissue translucent as wax paper—a ghost heart, as Taylor calls it. She injected the scaffold with fresh heart cells from newborn rats. Then she waited.


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February 2012: The Future of Fun

Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?


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