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October

Table of Contents October 2012

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.

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FEATURES

The State of the World: 2062

by Linda Marsa

What will the world be like in 50 years? We explore the trends of that vibrant and worrisome time.

The Recipe For Immortality

by Ed Regis, George Church

An expert in synthetic biology explains how people could soon live for centuries. 

A Love Supreme 

by Kathleen Ann Goonan

New Fiction: In tomorrow's America, elites cheat death while middle class people confront a harsher reality.

How the Woman/Man Ratio Affects Sex, Facial Hair, and Politics

by Robert Epstein

In the 1970s, a Harvard psychologist proposed that the ratio of men to women shapes culture and politics. Her theory predicts U.S. social trends for the next 25 years.

Brutal Truths About  the Aging Brain

by Robert Epstein

A graying world will have more of the experience that comes with age. It will also be slower, fuzzier, more forgetful, and just a bit hard of hearing. 

100,000 Years of Dramatic Population Changes

by Michael Balter

An ever-rising population has driven cultural advancement for millennia. What will happen when global numbers drop for the first time in modern history? The past offers clues.

The Crack Team That Removes & Preserves People's Brains Just Hours After They Die

by Jeff Wheelwright

An Arizona retirement community helps create the world’s greatest brain bank.  

The Gray Tsunami

by Jeff Wheelwright

The world faces a wave of aging, and with it wrenching social and economic changes. An Arizona retirement community hints at things to come.

Geoffrey West Finds the Physical Laws Embedded in Human Cities

by Veronique Greenwood

Like the body plans and circulatory systems of animals, our developments scale in predictable ways.

DEPARTMENTS

Editor's Note: The End of Population Growth

by Corey S. Powell

If human population tops out around 2100, what will that mean for our planet and societies?

20 Things You Didn't Know About...

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

by Corey S. Powell

They were way more dangerous in the past, they're developing some impressive smart lighting, and they'll drive themselves in the future.

Hot Science: The Best New Science Culture

by Kate Greene, Mara Grunbaum, Eric A. Powell, Veronique Greenwood, Emma Bryce, Fangei Shen

The past future on display, the Bruce Willis Improbability Index, and science events in October

Big Idea: Tap The Healing Power of Poop

by Jill Neimark

For patients chronically debilitated by colitis, transplanting feces  from a healthy donor can offer a lifelong cure.

Impatient Futurist

Rise of the (Friendly) Drones

by David H. Freedman

Unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator have been a hit for the military. Just wait  until ordinary folks get their hands on them.

Getting Personal

Getting Personal: How I Explored a Prehistoric Hobbit Cave

by Jill Neimark

Digging Up the Early Universe

by Sean Carroll

Cosmologists are uncovering relics from  the dawn of time, letting them look  back almost all the way to the Big Bang.

Saints + Sinners

Saints + Sinners: Patient Healer, Climate Denier

Vital Signs: A Rip Van Winkle Virus

by Claire Panosian Dunavan

When her friend returns from Africa with a strange skin condition, a doctor suspects a pathogen from out of the past.

Notes From Earth

A Hubble Telescope Pointed Into the Ground

by Emily Elert

A mobile seismic observatory, rolling out  slowly across the continent, is piecing together  a startling picture of what lies beneath.

DATA

Science on the  Auction Block

by Fangfei Shen

Have some money burning a hole in your pocket? You could buy yourself a piece of science history.

A Dying Star Is Reborn in a Lab 

by Joseph A. Bernstein

If you want to know how plasma behaves, just pump 26 million amps into some hydrogen and you'll soon find out.

Found: Microbes From the Dinosaur Age 

by Sophia Li

Down at the depths of the seafloor, there are hidden, ancient organisms—just barely alive.

Look at This: Heavens in Motion 

by Fangfei Shen

The view changes fast aboard the International Space Station.

Was Madagascar Settled by a Tiny Group of Refugees From Distant Lands?

by Jennifer Abbasi

The first inhabitants of the island seem to have come not from nearby Africa but distant Indonesia.

Spy on the Inside: What's Cooking Inside Homeland Security's Pathogen Lab?

by Amy Barth

The federal lab on New York's Plum Island studies some of the world’s most threatening pathogens.

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