The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Created the Amazon Rain Forest

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April 02, 2021

Evolution The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Created the Amazon Rain Forest Fossilized pollen and leaves reveal that the meteorite that caused the extinction of nonavian dinosaurs also reshaped South America's plant communities to yield the planet's largest rain forest By Rachel Nuwer

Public Health It's Much More Likely the Coronavirus Came from Wildlife, Not a Lab Former CDC director Robert Redfield says he believes in a lab leak—but offers no evidence. The odds are against his notion By Josh Fischman

Climate Greenland's Lakes Are Vanishing during Winter as Well as Summer Special satellite radar reveals the unexpected drainage through the porous Greenland ice sheet By Chelsea Harvey,E&E News

Medicine COVID Showed How Trials for New Drugs Could Be Faster and Better The pandemic has spotlighted ways to make clinical trials easier on patients and better for science, a heart drug researcher says By Claudia Wallis

Space Ingenuity's 'Wright Stuff': A Piece of the Wright Flyer Will Soar on Mars The first powered atmospheric flight on another planet will honor its roots with a payload drawn from the dawn of aviation itself By Leo DeLuca

Public Health Rapid COVID Tests Are Coming to Stores Near You Companies backed by millions in public and private cash are racing to bring the tests to market By Hannah Norman,Kaiser Health News

Climate Biden's Infrastructure Plan Would Make Electricity Carbon-Free by 2035 A clean energy standard for power plants is the linchpin, although details are thin By Scott Waldman

Medicine If You Don't Have COVID Vaccine Side Effects, Are You Still Protected? Reactions reflect unique features of an individual's immune system, not the strength of a response By Stephani Sutherland

Behavior & Society The Best Medicine Doesn't Always Come in a Bottle A program called Wheels of Change pays unsheltered people to pick up trash or otherwise help clean up their community—and it can turn their lives around By Carolyn Barber

Arts & Culture Poem: 'Picture a Clerihew' Science in meter and verse By William B. Ashworth,Melissa Dehner

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Mind, Volume 32, Issue 2

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Life inside the Extinction These are startling times, but there's a way out By Caleb A. Scharf | April 2020

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We can relate this to nowadays because we're also transforming landscapes, and that lasts forever--or at least a very long time." Carlos Jaramillo, paleobiologist at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

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