's July/August 2025 Issue
In the spring of 2024 Jeffery DelViscio (seen freezing above), who is Scientific American 's chief multimedia editor, spent a month on a scientific expedition on the Greenland ice sheet. The sun never set, the wind never stopped, and it was often –20 degrees Fahrenheit even inside his tent. 'After the first night, I was like, 'I think I've made a huge mistake. This is the most uncomfortable I think I've ever been in my life,'' he says. 'The weirdest part is how quickly you can acclimatize to it.' His body adjusted to the new normal after only a few days.
On the ice stream, survival was a group exercise for DelViscio, the researchers, and their survival specialists (including a polar bear guard). DelViscio witnessed the extraction of a special bedrock core, hoisted up from below the ice, which he documents in our cover story and his accompanying photographs in this issue. DelViscio, who has a master's degree in earth science, once collected and studied similar cores from the seafloor.
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
'There's memory everywhere,' DelViscio says. Cores like these reveal our planet's climate history, and the rock below Greenland's ice will help scientists learn when the island was last ice-free. 'What this piece of rock remembers has incredibly large implications for how we live as a human species going forward,' he says.
Elizabeth Anne Brown Pay Dirt
Every sunny winter weekend in Denmark, 'gold is coming out of the ground,' says Elizabeth Anne Brown, a journalist based in Copenhagen. For years Brown lurked in a Facebook group where Denmark's metal detectorists post photographs of intricate, hand-carved Viking treasures they've unearthed. 'It's infuriating when you're at home on the couch and don't know any Danish farmers you can ask if you can go metal detect on their property,' she says of her own predicament. Instead she began tagging along as a reporter. For her feature in this issue, Brown covered this incredible community of treasure hunters in Denmark—and the archaeologists who partner with them to document the country's past. Wielding a metal detector requires a lot of physical and mental skill, she says; many detectorists can tell just from the beeps what type of metal object lies under the ground.
'I think some people are really just born with an innate desire to search and reach out for connection with the past,' Brown says. She considers herself one of them. 'I grew up looking for pottery fragments and old bottles in a stream behind my grandparents' farm' in Alabama, she says. As a journalist, she's always searching for strange, odd creatures to report on—or, as she describes it, she's 'on the 'lil fella' beat.' For a second story in this issue, in the Advances section, Brown wrote about velvet worms, which are powerful, murderous and wonderful, she says: 'Move over axolotls, move over tardigrades: velvet worms are the next big thing.'
Maia Szalavitz Can Psychopathy Be Cured?
Journalist Maia Szalavitz often writes about addiction. It's a heavily stigmatized condition, and she has experienced it firsthand: in her 20s she had addictions to cocaine and heroin. 'Trying to figure out what the heck happened and how I went from straight-A student who got into Columbia to shooting up 40 times a day was a big part of how I ended up doing science writing,' she says. 'I wanted to understand, How do we become who we are?'
For her feature article in this issue, Szalavitz explored what is perhaps the most stigmatizing label in mental health: psychopathy, particularly the callous and unemotional traits in children that can develop into adult psychopathy. 'If you're genetically prone to it, it's as much not your fault as if you were genetically prone to addiction or bipolar disorder,' she says. But what does that mean when psychopathy often involves remorseless harm done to others?
'I'm always interested in the way our systems of morality intersect with medicine,' Szalavitz says. About half of children with these traits don't progress to psychopathy in adulthood, and many of them 'learn to do cognitively what other people naturally do emotionally,' she says. 'I'm always interested in seeing how people deal with the hand that they end up being dealt.'
Amanda Hobbs Fashion Forward
If you want to know the answer to a multifaceted question, put Amanda Hobbs on the case. 'I've researched almost any topic you can think of,' she says, including lithium batteries, ancient Rome, fungal infections, space and epigenetics. Hobbs is a freelancer whose work often shapes the graphics in Scientific American. For this issue, she researched sustainable fashion for graphics by senior graphics editor Jen Christiansen, as part of the feature article by Jessica Hullinger. Today's fashion industry is a complicated landscape (more so than she'd initially thought), and it's challenging to identify viable options. 'Is it really sustainable? Or is it just paying lip service?' Hobbs asks. She hopes the graphics will help people 'get past the greenwashing.'
In college Hobbs was torn between biology and history. 'Biology is literally dissecting something to see all the different parts. I'm much more into that figuratively. So I became a history major.' This knowledge helps her research bygone worlds to inform artistic re-creations of scenes from the past, such as Incan mummy rituals or Emperor Hadrian visiting a Roman fort. These reconstructions require a lot of historical detail about ancient peoples' etiquette, fashion, and more. It's 'that sort of everyday lived history,' she says, that she loves digging into the most.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scientific American
a day ago
- Scientific American
Science Jigsaw: Sunday, July 6, 2025
Emma R. Hasson is a PhD candidate in mathematics at the City University of New York Graduate Center with expertise in math education and communication. Hasson is also a 2025 AAAS Mass Media Fellow at Scientific American.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Are cats the only animals that purr?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. There's plenty of things to love about cats, and purring is definitely one of them. Cat owners can always tell when their pet is happy from their low, contented hums. But do any other animals purr? The answer depends on how exactly you define "purr," said Jonathan Losos, a professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis and author of "The Cat's Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa" (Viking, 2023) "If the question is, 'what animals purr,' I would respond by, 'what do you mean by purr?'," Losos told Live Science. The first important component of a purr is its context. Cats are known to purr when they're happy, but they can also purr when they're stressed or in pain. Cats start purring shortly after birth, and both mothers and kittens often purr while locating each other and during nursing. The second component of a purr is its physical mechanism. Scientists still don't fully understand how cats purr, but an important feature of purring is vibration of the larynx, the structure in the throat known as the voice box in humans. Unlike most other animal vocalizations, which happen only during exhalation, purrs happen continuously as the cat breathes in and out. "It's very constant, and that's really one of the signatures of a cat purring," Losos explained. Related: Why do cats purr? That continuous sound makes felines unique in their ability to purr. Domestic cats (Felis catus), however, aren't the only cat species that purr — wild cats such as cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), cougars (Puma concolor), servals (Leptailurus serval) and bobcats (Lynx rufus) can all purr, too. Some scientists think that instead of categorizing different species as "big" or "small" cats, it's actually more accurate to classify cats as "purring" or "roaring." Lions (Panthera leo), tigers (Panthera tigris), jaguars (Panthera onca) and leopards (Panthera pardus) can't purr, but they can roar, likely due to the anatomy of a structure in their throat called the hyoid. Outside of the cat family tree, though, continuous purring vocalizations are very rare. The only other animal that's known to purr during inhalation and exhalation is a distant cousin of cats called a genet (genus Genetta). "They are delightful little animals," Losos said. He described their appearance as a cross between a cat and a mongoose, with long, pointed noses and slender bodies. There are at least two species of genets that are known to purr, Losos said, although it's possible there are more whose purrs haven't been documented by researchers yet. True purring is unique to cats and genets. But with a looser definition of purring that doesn't focus on the continuous vibration during both inhalation and exhalation, there are many species across the animal kingdom that also make buzzing, rumbly noises, often in similar contexts to cat purring. Raccoons (Procyon lotor), for example, "purr" when they're happy and relaxed, usually when babies are with their mothers. Suzanne MacDonald, a professor of psychology at York University who regularly works with raccoons, even witnessed an orphaned baby raccoon "purr" while she hand-fed it. "They don't sound exactly like cats purring, but pretty close!" MacDonald told Live Science in an email. "When you hear it, you know you're doing something right." There's not much research on raccoon "purring," but MacDonald believes the sound comes from a combination of a raccoon vocalization called a chitter and excess saliva from the raccoons being very relaxed — a very different mechanism to how felines purr. Many other mammals make vibrating noises to express comfort. For example, some rabbit owners report their pets rapidly chatter their teeth together when they're relaxed, creating a vibrating sound similar to a purr. Bats can "purr" when being held by a trusted human, one bat expert told The Irish Times. And researchers have noted that when mother and kit gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are together, they make a purring-like sound called a "muk-muk." RELATED MYSTERIES —Why do cats have 'toe beans'? —Why do cats 'chatter'? —How do cats get their spots? Some animals that "purr" aren't even mammals. Take wolf spiders (Gladicosa gulosa), which, when attracting potential mates, strike specialized body parts against each other to make a purring sound, similar to how crickets create their chirps. While many animals do make noises that share some resemblance to cat purrs, there's still a lot of questions. Because many animals make these vibrating noises when they're relaxed, it's a difficult behavior to study, because the presence of human researchers can inherently stress animals out. But one thing is clear: By the strict definition of purring, cats really are special.
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Scientists transplant crossbred corals to help save Miami's reefs from climate change
The plan of introducing corals from the Caribbean evolved over the past few years. 'We had this idea that we really needed to try to help Florida's coral reef by introducing more diversity from around the Caribbean, recognizing that some of the biggest threats to corals, like climate change, are really global phenomena and if you try to have Florida's reefs save themselves on their own, we could give them some outside help,' Baker said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Coral breeding has also been done in Hawaii, where, in 2021, scientists were working to speed up the coral's evolutionary clock to breed 'super corals' that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. Advertisement Baker's group teamed with the Florida Aquarium and Tela Marine, bringing in fragments of corals from a warm reef off of Tela, Honduras, which spawned in tanks at the aquarium. 'We were able to cross the spawn from those corals, the sperm and the eggs, to produce babies. One parent from Florida, one parent from Honduras,' Baker said. Advertisement They chose the reef off of Tela because the water is about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the water off the coast of Florida. 'And yet the corals in those environments, and especially the Elkhorn corals, are really thriving,' Baker said. He noted that there are extensive beds that are hundreds of meters long, full of flourishing Elkhorn. 'They survive there despite really warm conditions and also quite nutrient-polluted waters,' Baker said. The conditions are similar to those Florida will face over the next century, Baker said. It's also the first time international crossbreeding of corals has been permitted for planting onto wild reefs. 'So we're really excited to see how these do,' he said. The hope is the corals will be more 'thermally tolerant,' which Baker and the team will be testing throughout the summer. Elkhorn corals are some of Florida's most iconic species and are valuable because they form the crest of the reef, Baker said. 'And the reef is what protects shorelines from storms and flooding. So if you have healthy Elkhorn coral populations, you have a great reef that is acting almost like a speed bump over which waves and storms pass and dissipate their energy before they hit the coast,' he said. Elkhorn corals are in serious decline, thanks in part to the coral bleaching in 2023 and warming sea temperatures, Baker said. While coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them, prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds. The coral ejects them, and a stark white skeleton — referred to as coral bleaching — is left behind, and the weakened coral is at risk of dying. Advertisement 'We've lost maybe more than 95 percent of the Elkhorn corals that were on Florida's reefs at that point,' Baker said. Some of the corals spawned in the Florida Aquarium's laboratory arrived there in 2020, said Keri O'Neil, director and senior scientist with the aquarium's Coral Conservation Program. She said more fragments from Honduras and Florida will continue to live at the center. 'We hope that every year in the future we can make more and more crosses and continue to figure out which parents produce the best offspring,' O'Neil said. The tiny Elkhorn coral fragments were placed onto small concrete bases along the reef on Tuesday. 'We've arranged them in a certain way that we can compare the performance of each of corals,' Baker said. The team will study how the corals that have a Honduran parent compare to the ones that are entirely from Florida. 'But it's really the future that we're looking to and in particular, a warming future and a warming summer, how these corals do and do they have more thermal tolerance than the native Florida population, because that's really what the goal of the whole project is,' he said. Baker said it's the most exciting project he's worked on during his 20-year stint at the University of Miami. If the corals thrive, it could provide a blueprint for working across the Caribbean to share corals. 'This is a project about international collaboration, about the fact that our environment really doesn't have closed borders, that we can work together to make things better in the world,' said Juli Berwald, co-founder of Tela Coral. 'And it shows that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can really do something that might be life-changing, not just for us but for the corals and the reefs and all the animals that rely on the reefs.' Advertisement
