Scientific American Article Research Articles

Misunderstanding Flight Part 2: Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science

Flight has become a common everyday occurrence. We have engineered ever more efficient and reliable aircraft, facilitating safe transportation around the world. However, from the education literature on the topic of lift, online discussions, and YouTube, it becomes apparent that there are underlying pedagogical issues. The 2003 New York Times article by Chang and the 2020 Scientific American article by Regis conclude that no one really understands flight. These claims are made without regard for the underpinning science and engineering responsible for the modern aviation industry. Although, it does beg the question, why is there confusion about how wings work? Several factors have conspired together, resulting in this confusion. Fluid mechanics is a complex topic that stumped legends of physics and mathematics for centuries. It also contains paradoxes, exacerbating the complexity. However, the central thesis of this work is that knowledge about aerodynamics is not easy to construct due to two main factors. First, there are epistemological traps that directly lead to fallacious conclusions. Second, representativeness heuristics incorrectly apply behaviors of visible water to invisible air. While many assume they know how wings work, if they do not understand why there is confusion, rather than dismissing it, confusion will endure.

A Blueprint for Genetic Determinism

A Blueprint for Genetic Determinism

The Cup Whisperer

The Cup Whisperer

Gatherings of an Infovore: Coping With More Than the Pandemic

Finding a new word in an article is a real treat for an infovore. So, when I came across “infodemic” in a recent Scientific American article, I immediately wanted to research where it came from. As is often said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” This was indeed true of this “new” word. The first several entries I found about this “neologism” attributed it to David Rothkopf writing in a May 2003 Washington Post article. Rothkopf argued that an infodemic was making the current outbreak of the SARS virus “harder to control and contain.” I thought that it was quite appropriate for the term to be resurrected and even more appropriately applied to the global dissemination of information concerning COVID-19. COVID has created a perfect storm for fringe science Grimes DR. Scientific American. April 26, 2021. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-has-created-a-perfect-storm-for-fringe-science/ Words we’re watching: ‘infodemic’ Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-infodemic-meaning BUZZWORD infodemic Maxwell K. Macmillan Dictionary. June 3, 2020. https://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/infodemic.html Managing the COVID-19 infodemic: promoting healthy behaviours and mitigating the harm from misinformation and disinformation WHO, UN, UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNAIDS, ITU, UN Global Pulse, and IFRC l 23. September 2020. https://www.who.int/news/item/23-09-2020-managing-the-covid-19-infodemic-promoting-healthy-behaviours-and-mitigating-the-harm-from-misinformation-and-disinformation Let’s flatten the infodemic curve World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/let-s-flatten-the-infodemic-curve The coronavirus is the first true social-media “infodemic” Hao K, Basu T. MIT Technology Review. February 12, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/12/844851/the-coronavirus-is-the-first-true-social-media-infodemic/ The coronavirus ‘infodemic’ is real. We rated the websites responsible for it. Gregory J. STAT News. February 28, 2020. https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/28/websites-spreading-coronavirus-misinformation-infodemic/ Scientists develop smart search app for COVID-19 literature University of Toronto. Medical Press. April 27, 2020. […]

Catch and Contain Novel Pathogens Early!—Assessing U.S. Medical Isolation Laws as Applied to a Future Pandemic Detection and Prevention Model

As of July 2, 2021, there have been 196,553,009 confirmed cases of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), including 4,200,412 deaths, globally. Unfortunately, infectious diseases have been an “unavoidable fact of life” throughout history. While the global community looks forward to a gradual return to normalcy from COVID-19 with an increasing number of individuals getting vaccinated on a daily basis, the COVID-19 public health crisis has exposed significant inadequacies in many countries’ pandemic responses—the United States included. Governing authorities must actively consider more effective solutions to quickly detect and prevent the spread of future pandemics. One proposed model that offers promising potential, but is not yet developed in greater detail, is a future pandemic detection and monitoring architecture. This Comment will refer to this architecture as the “test-and-isolate model.” In his May 2020 Scientific American article, biochemist Dr. David J. Ecker recommends strategically placing modern high-speed metagenomic sequencing technology in urban hospitals across the United States to flag previously-unknown pathogens before the infectious agents have the opportunity to spread widely and pose threats of a new pandemic. Under this model, during a time period without any apparent pandemics (peacetime), the 200 biggest metropolitan hospitals in the U.S. would automatically run diagnostic tests upfront for novel causative agents for patients who visit the emergency room with severe respiratory symptoms that are possibly infectious. If such a system detects a sufficiently serious pathogen, public health agencies would send out diagnostic tests to all residents in the affected geographical area(s) within weeks and isolate those who test positive. This system could be integrated with contact tracing and more standard outbreak response.

Rise of the Nanorobots: Advances in Control, Molecular Detection, and Nanoscale Actuation Are Bringing Us Closer to a New Era of Technology Enhanced by Nanorobots

In 1988, a Scientific American article by A.K. Dewdney [1] on the work of nanotechnologist K. Eric Drexler spurred public interest in the nascent field of nanotechnology and its potential for advancing humanity into a new technological age. The article portrayed a world run by nanoscale machines that could operate in any environment (Figure 1), with uses ranging from fighting infections in the human body to building tomorrow's skyscrapers. Nearly 30 years later, these visions of the future are closer than ever. Advances in microscopic imaging, nanobiotechnology, and collective control are ushering in the age of nanoscale robotics.

Peter Middleton. Physics Envy: American Poetry and Science in the Cold War and After. ix + 318 pp., index. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2015. $45 (cloth).

Peter Middleton. <i>Physics Envy: American Poetry and Science in the Cold War and After</i>. ix + 318 pp., index. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2015. $45 (cloth).

The motivations of ubiquitous computing: revisiting the ideas behind and beyond the prototypes

Ask anyone in the field, "What is ubiquitous computing?" and you'll get a different answer from each person. The one definition of ubicomp that nearly everyone points to (as an almost obligatory citation) is Mark Weiser's 1991 Scientific American article: "The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." While this vision was clearly inspiring, many readers miss the point that ubicomp was not simply a dream of putting computers everywhere. Weiser was deeply concerned about what it would be like to live in a world of ubiquitous computing. Those human issues were compressed to a single paragraph of his Scientific American article, citing Herbert Simon, Michael Polanyi, James Gibson, Hans Georg Gadamer, and Martin Heidegger. By unpacking this dense paragraph, tracing connections between ideas through his library archives, and interviewing many of Weiser's professional and personal influencers from the early days of ubicomp (late 1980s at Xerox PARC), we get a sense for the philosophical history behind ubiquitous computing. This broader understanding of the influencers and ideas can serve as a source for inspiration for exploration and innovation that refocuses upon the first-person human experience of ubicomp systems: (1) leveraging human experience below the level of focused, conscious attention, (2) bringing back embodiment, and (3) simultaneously supporting and getting out of the way of human interpersonal interactions and relationships.

Mel - personal reminiscence.

Mel - personal reminiscence.

The limited benefits of rereading educational texts

Though rereading is a study method commonly used by students, theoretical disagreement exists regarding whether rereading a text significantly enhances the representation and retention of the text’s contents. In four experiments, we evaluated the effectiveness of rereading relative to a single reading in a context paralleling that faced by students in the classroom. Participants read educational texts (textbook chapters or a Scientific American article) under intentional learning instructions. Learning and memory were tested with educationally relevant summative assessments (multiple choice, short-answer questions, and text summaries). With only several exceptions, rereading did not significantly increase performance on the assessments. We also found that reading comprehension ability did not alter this pattern. It appears that when using ecologically valid materials such as a textbook chapter, immediate rereading may have little or no benefit for improving performance on educationally relevant summative assessments.

Threats to Privacy Protection

W. W. Lowrance and F. S. Collins raise excellent points in their Policy Forum “Identifiability in genomic research” (3 August, p. [600][1]). Assuring privacy protections in both genomic research and medicine practice is of urgent concern. A recent Scientific American article ([1][2]) describes how even deidentified data can be used to reidentify individuals, specifically when bits of information exist in public databases. The article recounts the work of Lantanya Sweeney, who runs the Data Privacy Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research found that reidentifying personal information is simpler than one might have imagined. In one case, a banker cross-referenced information in publicly available hospital discharge records against his client list to determine whether any of his clients had cancer. If they did, he called in their loans. In another case, Sweeney found a way to reidentify patients with Huntington disease even after all information about the patients had been deleted from their records. She combined known sequencing data indicating the presence of the disease with hospital discharge records, which included patients'ages, and succeeded in accurately linking 90% of the Huntington disease patients with DNA records on file. Privacy involves more than the deidentification of personal information, as illustrated by the 2004 U.S. Appeals case Northwestern Memorial Hospital vs. John Ashcroft. The case centered on Ashcroft's attempt to subpoena roughly 45 Northwestern Memorial Hospital patient records for use in an upcoming trial in the Southern District of New York to challenge the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Although patient records would have been anonymized prior to release, patients nonetheless protested against Ashcroft's access on grounds that anonymization did not fully protect their privacy. The hospital went to court to block Ashcroft, and the patients prevailed. The court determined that Northwestern Memorial Hospital was not required to comply with a subpoena from the Justice Department for abortion patients'medical records. Importantly, the court stated, “Even if there were no possibility that a patient's identity might be learned from a redacted medical record, there would be an invasion of privacy. If Northwestern Memorial Hospital cannot shield its abortion patients' records from disclosure in judicial proceedings, moreover, the hospital will lose the confidence of its patients, and persons with sensitive medical conditions may be inclined to turn elsewhere for medical treatment” ([2][3]). 1. 1.[↵][4] 1. C. Walter , Sci. Am. 297, 92 (July 2007). [OpenUrl][5][PubMed][6][Web of Science][7] 2. 2.[↵][8] Northwestern Memorial Hospital vs. John Ashcroft 362 F.3d 923 (7th Cir. 2004); available at . [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1147699 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [5]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DScientific%2BAmerican%26rft.stitle%253DScientific%2BAmerican%26rft.aulast%253DWalter%26rft.auinit1%253DC.%26rft.volume%253D297%26rft.issue%253D1%26rft.spage%253D92%26rft.epage%253D5%26rft.atitle%253DA%2Blittle%2Bprivacy%252C%2Bplease.%2BComputer%2Bscientist%2Blatanya%2Bsweeney%2Bhelps%2Bto%2Bsave%2Bconfidentiality%2Bwith%2B%2522anonymizing%2522%2Bprograms%252C%2B%2522deidentifiers%2522%2Band%2Bother%2Bclever%2Balgorithms.%2BWhether%2Bthey%2Bare%2Benough%252C%2Bhowever%252C%2Bis%2Banother%2Bquestion.%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F17695848%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [6]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=17695848&link_type=MED&atom=%2Fsci%2F318%2F5852%2F913.3.atom [7]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=000247667700044&link_type=ISI [8]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2. in text

Words

Words

Foreword to the Special Issue on Computational Heat Transfer

Foreword to the Special Issue on Computational Heat Transfer

RFID and the Perception of Control: The Consumer’s View

In his seminal 1991 Scientific American article The Computer for the 21st Century, Mark Weiser, an early visionary of ubiquitous computing, wrote the social problem associated with ubiquitous computing, while often couched in terms of privacy, is really one of control. The ongoing public debate over RFID technology and how it might affect consumer data privacy in the retail industry very much reflects this tension between control and privacy. The Metro Group Future Store Initiative represents the first large scale roll out of RFID technology in a retail context. We have been working for the past year with Metro Group to identify consumers' major privacy fears relating to RFID and develop and evaluate appropriate privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). Here, we analyze the results of our empirical study of ordinary German retail consumers conducted in the spring of 2005. We gave a representative sample of 129 consumers two distinctly different types of PETs, one user-based, one agent-based.

Introducing Biofilms

The concept that bacteria live preferentially in matrix-enclosed communities attached to surfaces has emerged gradually from scientific observations over an extended period of time, but the pace at which this concept has advanced has accelerated sharply during the past two decades. Because Antonie van Leuwenhoek examined his own teeth scrapings with his primitive microscope, he probably saw more biofilm fragments than planktonic cells, and dental microbiologists and waste-water engineers have had a lengthy association with biofilms without using that term. Early microscopic observations of marine systems showed that most bacteria adhered actively to surfaces, and the role of surfaces in the migration and maturation of myxobacterial communities was noted very early in the study of these fascinating organisms. The new concept that was crystallized in a Scientific American article in February 1978 (Costerton, J. W., Geesey, G. G. &amp; Cheng, K. J. (1978) How bacteria stick. Scientific American238, 86–95) was that these surface associations were the rule (and not the exception) in all nutrient-sufficient microbial ecosystems, and that most bacteria in the biosphere grow in biofilms.

The Antikythera Mechanism: still a mystery of Greek astronomy?

nary surviving artefact from the ancient Greek world was discovered just one century ago. In 1900, sponge divers in the Mediterranean were forced away from their normal diving grounds by a storm. Off the coast of the island of Antikythera, they found a wreck which was to yield a priceless collection of Greek statues and other items. The yield from further dives during 1900–01 included an encrusted bronze lump, whose astronomical significance was only recognized some eight months after excavations had terminated, when it was found to have split apart. Containing some 30 gear wheels, and now known as the Antikythera Mechanism, this device is an order of magnitude more complicated than any surviving mechanism from the following millennium. There is no surviving precursor. The Mechanism was extensively studied and heroically publicized by the late Derek de Solla Price in a book, Gears from the Greeks (de Solla Price 1975), and a Scientific American article “An Ancient Greek Computer” (de Solla Price 1959). But despite its profound implications, the Mechanism does not seem to have been given the prominence it deserves. Indeed, it has even been commented (Price 1995) that the Antikythera Mechanism has sunk twice – the second time after publication of de Solla Price’s book! There are still many mysteries surrounding the device, in particular what was it for? And who made it? Just as fascinating are the implications for our view of the society in which it originated, and speculations on why nothing more advanced arose for a thousand years. In this article we summarize what is known about the Mechanism, try to place it in its historical context, and begin to re-interpret its function and purpose. The ship, a Roman merchant ship of 300 tons, had sunk on a well-used trade route from the Eastern to the Western Mediterranean. The wreck (de Solla Price 1975, Illesley 2000) and its contents are consistent with a date for the wreck of 80–50 BC. Jacques Cousteau (1978) recovered Pergamese coins from about 86–67 BC, which with Ephesian coins of 70–60 BC (Yalouris 1990) reinforces a view that this had been a treasure ship on its way to Rome including booty from Pergamon (circa 84 BC, Cary 1970) after the First Mithradatic War. A reasonable date for the wreck is thus 85–60 BC. The ship itself is built from much older timber, 200±43 BC (de Solla Price 1975).

An Introduction to Combinatorial Group Theory and the Word Problem

(1997). An Introduction to Combinatorial Group Theory and the Word Problem. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 70, No. 1, pp. 3-10.

Banishing the Pesky Demon: the Final Word

Thomas Pynchon's work is well known for its concern with the subject of entropy. in The Crying of Lot 49, for example, the idea of entropy in thermodynamics is linked to the idea of entropy in information theory. As Oedipa Maas succinctly puts it: "there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat- engines, the other to do with communication. The equation for one, back in the '30's, had looked very like the equation for the other. It was a coincidence. The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon" (105). Oedipa is correct. Until recently, however, no one knew why. But in a recent Scientific American article, "Demons, Engines and the Second Law" (November, 1987, 108-16), Charles H. Bennett takes pains to make a distinction between the thermodynamics of the physical world and the so-called thermodynamics of information theory, to have, as it were, the last word on the failure of Clerk Maxwell's gnome-like mythological sorter that could supposedly cheat the second law of thermodynamics.

The Scientific Management of Surgical Patients

One look at the names of the editors and the knowledgeable reader knows that this book has promise to be innovative, erudite, practical, interesting, and unusual. Sure enough, it is! These three unique surgeons, each of whom has a sound background in basic science, have edited with 21 other contributors a book that summarizes in clear but not inappropriately simplistic terms many of the advances in basic science as they apply to a patient undergoing surgery. Most clinicians, whether they are surgeons or other specialists, will have a nodding acquaintance with perhaps 10% to 20% of each chapter. But as for the remainder of the text, they will not only be strangers but have a vague uneasiness concerning their ignorance. This book, written with the clarity and simplicity of a Scientific American article, fills the transitional need for the clinician. The book is organized into 17 topics, such as the

A Desirable Energy Future: A National Perspective

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsWilliam C. GoughBill Gough has 30 years of experience in the energy field ranging from basic research to applied energy technologies to commercialization activities. He is currently the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Site Manager [Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)/Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL)J responsible for the high-energy and nuclear physics work at the SLA C and the basic science research at the SSRL. Prior to this position, Bill was the director of DOE's Office of Program Assessment and Integration in San Francisco and the manager of the Electric Power Research Institute's fusion power program. He worked for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission on nuclear power reactor programs and in research programs on controlled thermonuclear fusion and plasma physics. He was instrumental in establishing the fusion reactor technology effort. Bill is author of a Scientific American article and has published in numerous journals, magazines, and books, including the Environmental Engineer’s Handbook. He obtained his BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Princeton University and has studied the interaction of science and public policy during a sabbatical at Harvard University.