Physicists Achieve Best-Ever Measurement of Fine-Structure Constant

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

    

December 16, 2020

Dear Reader, Researchers have made the most precise measurement of one of the fundamental constants, called the fine-structure constant, providing physicists with a vital tool to verify the consistency of their most cherished theoretical models. From our next story, national security experts say the incoming Biden-Harris administration should press U.S. defense and intelligence agencies to do more about climate change. And, in our January issue, the editors of Scientific American argue that it's time to fix flawed Internet regulations on free speech that mainly protect tech giants like Facebook and Twitter, not their users.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Physics Physicists Achieve Best-Ever Measurement of Fine-Structure Constant Three times more precise than the previous record-holding determination, the result closely agrees with theoretical predictions but could still reveal pathways to new physics By Dhananjay Khadilkar

Medicine For Black and Brown Kidney Patients, Higher Hurdles to Care Minority patients are diagnosed later, stay on dialysis longer, and are added to transplant lists less quickly. Why? By Carrie Arnold,Larry C. Price

Biology How the First Life on Earth Survived Its Biggest Threat--Water Living things depend on water, but it breaks down DNA and other key molecules. So how did the earliest cells deal with the water paradox? By Michael Marshall,Nature magazine

Policy & Ethics Food Industry-Backed Research Gives Results Funders Want, New Analysis Shows More than half of these studies yielded outcomes favorable to company products compared to less than 10 percent lacking such support By Jim Daley

Policy & Ethics A Federal Law That Protects Competition but Permits Hate and Harassment Online Must Be Revised Fixing a flawed Internet free speech regulation requires input from more than just tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter By THE EDITORS

Climate Defense Experts Call on Biden to Ready Military for Climate Change Some leaders want the military to use its purchasing power to invest in clean energy technology and solutions to mitigate climate impacts By Jacob Wallace,E&E News

Behavior & Society What Happens if an AI Gets Bored? In theory, it could become self-destructive—or even sadistic By Andreas Elpidorou

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Unlimited For just $199 a year, Scientific American Unlimited gives you access to all of our publications, apps and the full website experience.

ADVERTISEMENT

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The law was designed to protect Internet companies, many in their infancy at the time, from legal actions that could have held back their ability to innovate and grow. But today immunity from consequences has also allowed hate speech, harassment and misinformation to flourish." The Editors of Scientific American

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add news@email.scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us