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July-August

Table of Contents July-August 2011

Discover Magazine's mission is to enable readers to lead richer lives by explaining and expanding their universe. Each month we bring you in depth information and analysis from various topics ranging from technology and space to the living world we live in.

FEATURES

What You Don't Know Can Kill You

by Jason Daley

Humans have a perplexing  tendency to fear rare threats such as shark attacks while blithely  ignoring far greater risks like  unsafe sex and an unhealthy diet. Those illusions are not just  silly—they make the world a more dangerous place. 

The Vexing Mental Tug-of-War Called Morality

by Kristin Ohlson

Would you kill a crying baby to save yourself and others from hostile soldiers outside? Neuroscience offers new ways to approach such moral questions, allowing logic to triumph over deep-rooted instinct.

5 Things That Internet Porn Reveals About Our Brains

by Ogi Ogas, Sai Gaddam

From an enormous trove of sexual Web searches, neuroscientists extract some startling lessons in hidden desire.

Meet the Obscure, Useful Metals Lurking in Products All Around You

by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Without the rare earths, there would be no iPods and no hybrid cars. But who has even heard of erbium or ytterbium?

Storm-Chasing, a Chess Match With Nature

by Jocelyn Rice

Two fans of extreme weather head for Tornado Alley to look for twisters—but stay the heck out of their way.

How Information Became a Thing, and All Things Became Information

by James Gleick

From alphabets to iPhones, humans have experimented with  data storage for millennia. In the modern age, though, information  is beginning to overwhelm the physical world.

How Pig Guts Became the Next Bright Hope for Regenerating Human Limbs

by Adam Piore, Scott Lewis

A remarkable substance  extracted from pigs enables the body to  regenerate lost tissue, including fingertips and big chunks of muscle. And that may not be all it can do...

How I Became a Master of Memory

by Joshua Foer

A DISCOVER  writer stretches his mind and earns a place  at the World Memory  Championships  

DEPARTMENTS

20 Things You Didn't Know About...

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Magnetism

by Rebecca Coffey

The mystery of how to describe it, the mystery of where spin comes from, and the mystery of whether lightning makes rocks magnetic.

Impatient Futurist

The Internet May Soon Include All of the Things Around You

by David H. Freedman

As wireless nodes become cheaper and more common, our electronic networks will expand to include many of the non-electronic things you really care about: your missing pants, a new shoelace, and the city’s best produce stand. 

The Brain

The Brain: A Body Fit for a Freaky-Big Brain

by Carl Zimmer

Human biology reorganized itself to cope with the punishing burden of our oversize thinking parts. That shift completely reshaped who we are. 

Vital Signs

Vital Signs: And Down She Goes

by H. Lee Kagan

When a woman collapses in the waiting  room, a doctor acts swiftly to diagnose and treat a potentially fatal condition.

5 Questions

5 Questions for the Galaxy Finder

by Valerie Ross

Jeff Cooke looked heavenward and discovered Golden Boy, which showed astronomers how galaxies collide and merge.

Hot Science

Hot Science: The Best New Science Culture

by Sarah Stanley, Shannon Palus, Elise J. Marton, Natasha Fryer, Caroline Spivack

Summer movie mayhem, the most human ape, and Spielberg returns to the small screen

Sliced

Helped by Hops, Discourse by Dance, and Reign by Royalactin

by Amy Barth

Bees have amazingly complicated social structures and behaviors, and are critical for a lot of agriculture. Hopefully not all of their colonies will collapse...

Tools of the Trade

The Giant Crusher That Can Destroy NASA Rockets

by Andrew Grant

A massive metal compactor puts tough new rocket materials to the test.

Numbers

Numbers: Disappearances, From Our Water Supply to Our Laptops

by Mara Grunbaum

Big Idea

Big Idea: Darpa Challenge Inspires 4 Plans to Make Computers 40x More Efficient

by Eric Smalley

We're not too far away from supercomputers that could use half a gigawatt—as much energy as a small city. So chip researchers are looking to make giant steps in getting processors' power consumption under control.

Discover Q&A

Discover Interview: Anton Zeilinger Dangled From Windows, Teleported Photons, and Taught the Dalai Lama

by Eric Powell

What started out as totally intellectual, impractical experiments could help pave the way for a revolution in computing.

Editor's Note

The Science of Wonder

by Corey S. Powell

Better humanity through discovery

DATA

Caliente! Hottest Pepper Tips Heat Scale

by Amy Barth

On sampling the fruits of his labor, the horticulturalist behind the chili says, “It’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

Hit "Print," Make Blood Vessels

by Joseph Calamia

Instead of raiding a patient's body for a vein, heart surgeons could create a new one made from human cells.

Cosmic Eye Exam Shows Jaw-Dropping Accuracy of Webb Telescope's Optics

The scope's main mirror must hold its shape even down to temperatures near absolute zero.

Spacecraft That Refuse to Quit

by Annalee Newitz

Two of NASA's dynamic duos—the two Voyager crafts and Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity—are famous for operating well beyond their expected lifetimes. But the U.S. space program has produced some other examples of engineering that keep on ticking...

Brain Malfunction Prevents Rats From Remembering Deliciousness of Spicy Food

by Brooke Borei

For this study, rats are the perfect lab rats: they can learn about foods through one quick sniff of another rat's breath.

Plucked From the Sky

The Toxinator: EPA Robot Tests Chemicals to See if They're Poison

by Valerie Ross

The EPA and independent researchers can't possibly test the huge range of chemicals found in products we use. But now a tireless, efficient bot will take on the task.