Mystery of Spinning Atomic Fragments Solved at Last

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February 24, 2021

Physics Mystery of Spinning Atomic Fragments Solved at Last New experiments have answered the decades-old question of how pieces of splitting nuclei get their spins By Charles Q. Choi

Public Health Unraveling the Complex Link between COVID and Diabetes Infection with the pandemic-causing virus seems to trigger diabetes in some patients. Here are five plausible explanations as to why By Claudia Wallis

Environment European Forests Have Become More Vulnerable to Insect Outbreaks Climate change may be playing a role as higher heat makes trees less resilient to pests By Chelsea Harvey,E&E News

Space Astronomers Just Upsized an Iconic Black Hole Cygnus X-1, the first black hole ever discovered, is significantly bigger than previously believed By Charles Q. Choi,SPACE.com

Biology Graveyards Are Surprising Hotspots for Biodiversity Even the smallest burial sites could help conserve natural habitats in agricultural landscapes By Gemma Conroy

Arts & Culture Finding Yourself and Your Community when You Are Black in STEM Antonio Baines is trying to build a more diverse science, one student at a time By Devin Williams

Policy & Ethics How to Make 'Immunity Passports' More Ethical Requirements that travelers be vaccinated must be implemented in a humanitarian way By Nicole Hassoun,Anders Herlitz

Public Health COVID Variants May Arise in People with Compromised Immune Systems The case history of a U.K. man in his 70s shows how selective "pressures" bring about viral mutations By Stephani Sutherland

Conservation A Few Fixes Could Cut Noise Pollution That Hurts Ocean Animals Redesigning ship propellors and installing acoustic "curtains" could lower the volume on anthropogenic noise that disrupts ocean life By Joseph Polidoro

FROM THE STORE Racism: Confronting Injustice, Bias and Inequality The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 brought fierce and renewed tensions to issues of anti-Black racism and police violence in the US. The outcry and eruption of protests following Floyd's killing led to a long-overdue reckoning across industries, in politics and in society to confront white supremacy and racial injustice. For Scientific American, part of this reckoning is to make a commitment to improved and wider reporting of racism and to elevate Black and Brown voices. In this eBook, we've gathered some of our most important coverage to date, including how systemic racism is linked to COVID-19 and other public health crises, injustice in law enforcement practices and bias in academia and the scientific community.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY "Even though fission was discovered 80 years ago, it's so complex that we're still seeing interesting results today. The story of fission is not complete--there are more experiments to do, for sure." Jonathan Wilson, nuclear physicist at Université Paris-Saclay's Irene Joliot-Curie Laboratory in Orsay, France

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