How Parents Can Heal Rifts with Their Adult Children
This piece is part of Scientific American's column The Science of Parenting. To learn more, go here . Two parents reached out to me recently after their grown son cut off contact with them. In a letter, he’d told them that his problems with intimacy stemmed from emotional abuse inflicted by his parents when he
8 Ways to Protect Wildlife Near Your Home
Conservation may seem like something that scientists do to protect species that many people only ever see in zoos. But conservation can happen everywhere—such as in your backyard, where you play ball, drink coffee and host barbecues. Even apartment dwellers can make a difference. “There’s nothing that’s too small to do,” says Matthew Shepherd, director
If Alien Life Is Found, How Should Scientists Break the News?
If one day scientists discover evidence of extraterrestrial life, how will they tell the world? How certain will they be of their discovery, and how will the public know what sense to make of it? Will the news cause fear, existential agony, dancing in the streets or merely a worldwide shrug? And how much will
Where Is Planet Nine? Its Hiding Places Are Running Out
Does Planet Nine exist? This mystery has puzzled scientists for decades, but the answer—and the suspected world—remains elusive. Astronomers leading the search for the potential planet orbiting our sun far beyond Neptune recently revealed that they’ve whittled away at where it might be in the sky, eliminating 78 percent of its possible hiding places. While
Do Sperm Whales Have Culture?
Joseph Polidoro: Hal Whitehead can tell you exactly where he was when he discovered that sperm whales don’t all speak the same dialect. Hal Whitehead: Luke Rendell and I made our big discovery off the Galápagos Islands. Polidoro: The sperm whales they were studying seemed to live in two adjacent but distinct groups, each with
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