Scientific American Online

Researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) have invented a real-life Transformer, a device that can fold itself into two shapes on command. The system is hardly ready to do battle with the Decepticons--the tiny contraption forms only relatively crude boat and airplane shapes--but the concept could one day produce chameleonlike objects that shift between any number of practical shapes at will. [More]

We all carry our DNA around with us--in every cell of our bodies--but some biotech trailblazers are toting their genomes with them, too. In a recent talk Jay Flatley, president and CEO of sequencing giant Illumina, recalled being asked by his doctor to get a certain genetic test. But Flatley was able to pull up his full genome on his iPad then and there instead of sending a spit sample off to the lab. [More]

On a dark night in 1967, Reed Hayes stepped out onto the gangway over the uranium thickener tank. He was replacing a light bulb during the graveyard shift at the now-demolished Atlas uranium mill in Moab, Utah. He stumbled, reached desperately for the safety line, and grabbed nothing but air. A worker on the previous shift forgot to secure it.

"All of a sudden I go plop!" Hayes recalled. "I go clear to the bottom. I'm in nitric acid, sulfuric acid, uranium yellowcake, and caustic soda. If I hadn't been a good swimmer, I probably would not have gotten out of there."

Even if you have a light hand with the salt shaker, you probably get lots of sodium in processed or restaurant meals. But sodium can contribute to high blood pressure, and increases the risk for heart disease and failure, stroke, and kidney disease. So how many of us are limiting our sodium intake to recommended levels--which scientists say could reduce new cases of coronary heart disease by 60-to-120 thousand per year.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005/2006, the most recent years available. Nearly 4,000 adults over 20-years-old completed a physical, had their blood pressure taken and answered a survey of what they’d eaten over the past 24. This food survey was taken again about a week later.

Seepage of carbon dioxide from long-term carbon capture and storage projects may lead to delayed global warming unless the gas can be tightly controlled, according to a new study.

Unless the seepage rate of sequestered carbon dioxide can be held to 1 percent every 1,000 years, overall temperature rise could still reach dangerous levels that cause sea level rise and ocean acidification , concludes the research published yesterday in Nature Geoscience .

Some floated here on boats. Others flew. Still others arrived on the sole of a dirty boot. Many were invited, but some arrived unannounced. At this point, however, no one really cares how so-called alien species like the ash borer and the zebra mussel got here. Scientists are more focused on how to get rid of these pests. [More]

Consider the classic hypothetical: Your house is on fire, and you can rescue only three things before the structure is engulfed in flames. What would you take? Laptops and external hard drives aside, people’s responses to this question differ wildly--from a hand-scrawled love note to a valuable coin collection or even a threadbare T-shirt that anyone else would consider worthless.

The tendency to consider commonplace objects worthy of reverence and protection--to treat rookie cards like rosaries--is a universal human experience. Such powerful emotions are not rooted in any specific faith or belief system; nevertheless, they have a spiritual quality--and many psychologists use the term “sacred” to describe objects toward which people proclaim an unbounded or infinite commitment.

When residents of Santa Rosa flip a wall switch, they can take a little credit for the lights that come on. In this California city, yesterday’s toilet flush is today’s electricity.

Santa Rosa and Calpine Corporation, an wenergy company, are partners in the world’s largest geothermal wastewater-to-power project. They are using urban effluent to generate clean energy, improving life not only for humans but also for fish. For the city, the partnership has eliminated fines it was paying for dumping wastewater into the Russian River and the $400-million expense of building new wastewater storage facilities. For Calpine, the arrangement has revived geothermal steam fields that were declining from overuse.

LINDAU, Germany--An astronomer once told me about how he was often miserable growing up as the picked-on nerd. Nobody, he said, had ever told him the big secret: that if you stick with science, you win. You will have a fascinating career, meet and collaborate with intelligent and passionate people, and even get to travel to do it. I thought of him during the opening ceremonies here for the 60th annual Nobel Laureate Meeting at Lindau , Germany. For the special anniversary, the multidisciplinary meeting draws together 62 laureates and more than 675 young scientists from 70 countries for a week of lectures, inspiration and sharing ideas.

You might be surprised if you knew just how many scientists out there play in rock bands. When the sun goes down, garages, basements and living rooms throughout the land are filled with guys and gals who have shed their lab coats and strapped on their guitars. [More]

By Leigh Coleman and Guy Faulconbridge

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss./TORONTO (Reuters) - Thick oil from BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico spill washed ashore in Mississippi for the first time on Sunday while Russia's president suggested a special levy on oil companies to bankroll a fund to help clean up environmental disasters like this one.

Editor's Note: Marine biologist William Gilly is on an expedition to study Humboldt squid on the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research vessel New Horizon in the Gulf of California. He and other scientists are learning about the giant squid, their biology and ecology on this National Science Foundation-funded expedition. This is his fifth blog post about the trip. [More]

Editor's Note: Vienna, Austria-based science writer Chelsea Wald is taking part in a two-week Marine Biological Laboratory journalism fellowship at Toolik Field Station , an environmental research post inside the Arctic circle. To see the current conditions in Toolik, check out the Webcam .

I was nearly eaten by a thermokarst. I just stepped in and, before I knew it, I was sucked in up to the top of my big rubber boot. [More]

It may not be long before we witness the extinction of one of the world's six species of tigers, the Amur (or Siberian) tiger ( Panthera tigris altaica ). As we have previously reported, Amur tiger populations have dropped precipitously in recent years to around 250 animals, and the species faces a genetic bottleneck that puts it at risk of inbreeding. Now, a mysterious illness has started spreading through the Amur population, causing the death of four adult tigers and several newborns in the past 10 months.

"We may be witnessing an epidemic in the Amur tiger population," Dale Miquelle, director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Russia Program, told the Guardian .

Award-winning writer and physicist Graham Farmelo talks with podcast host Steve Mirsky [ pictured ] about The Strangest Man, Farmelo's biography of Nobel Prize–winning theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. [More]

Editor's Note: We are republishing this article by Paul Dirac from the May 1963 issue of Scientific American , as it might be of interest to listeners to the June 24, 2010, and June 25, 2010 Science Talk podcasts, featuring award-winning writer and physicist Graham Farmelo discussing The Strangest Man , his biography of the Nobel Prize-winning British theoretical physicist.

In this article I should like to discuss the development of general physical theory: how it developed in the past and how one may expect it to develop in the future. One can look on this continual development as a process of evolution, a process that has been going on for several centuries. [More]

Editor's Note: Marine biologist William Gilly is on an expedition to study Humboldt squid on the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research vessel New Horizon in the Gulf of California. He and other scientists are learning about the giant squid, their biology and ecology on this National Science Foundation-funded expedition. This is his fourth blog post about the trip. [More]