The social, physical and economic anguish that Hurricane Harvey visited upon flood-devastated Houston is reminding officials and residents in cities across the country of the need to plan for unexpected catastrophes. People rarely think ahead about the possible 500-year flood or likelihood of the tsunami or earthquake that kills thousands of people and leaves thousands more homeless. Scientists say such events have low probability and high consequence. And unless there is a recent memory, people don't pay too much attention to risks that seem [...]

For Love of Science, Music,and Medicine When a young music teacher stayed awake and played the saxophone during surgery to remove his brain tumor, it was part of an extraordinary six-month collaboration. The teacher wanted to be reassured he wouldn't lose his musical ability. The medical team wanted to know more about how the brain processes music. Dan Fabbio was teaching music and finishing his Master's degree in music education in the spring of 2015 when dizziness, nausea and oddly [...]

An illustration of two important features of hierarchical brain networks: modules and hubs. Adapted from Zamora-López et al. (2010). Updating the Map In 2009, the Human Connectome Project (HCP) was launched to  to build a "network map" (connectome) for the healthy human brain. The purpose of the connectome is to decipher the amazingly complex wiring diagram to reveal what makes us uniquely human and what makes every person different from all others. Dr. Olaf Sporns from Indiana University at Bloomington, [...]

Do you ever get a scrambled mash-up picture in your mind when different visual images appear simultaneously in your left and right fields of vision? If you do, it may just be the price you pay for being open minded. Luke Smillie, a senior lecturer in psychology and director of the Personality Processes Lab at the University of Melbourne in Australia has been studying open-mindedness and traits that seem to relate to it. One such trait is called binocular rivalry. [...]

Geography, psychology and history suggest the total solar eclipse August 21, in addition to offering rare fascination for astronomers and sky watchers, could also provide opportunity for national healing in a time of partisan discord, science writer David Baron says. Baron, who is an eclipse fanatic himself, wrote the book "American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race To Catch The Shadow Of The Moon And Win The Glory Of The World."It's a fascinating story of the total eclipse of 1878, a year when the U.S. [...]

We're Also More Diligent and Thoughtful Researchers say we try harder, make better decisions and achieve more when we work in groups that have racial, ethnic and gender diversity. A Scientific American story by Katherine Phillips describes research showing that scientists, businesses, banks, juries and groups collaborating to solve problems do a better job when people from diverse viewpoints and life experiences come together. People who differ from each other bring differing information, perspectives and opinions to the task at [...]

Communication, Decisions and Smart Swarms - A Different Set of Rules The Digital Age is challenging all our assumptions about the ways we work together as the Internet transforms the world into an interconnected network that was inconceivable a mere 20 years ago. While the technology revolution continues to expand the power of our possibilities, it also brings with it an unprecedented combination of accelerating change and escalating complexity that is severely testing the limits of established ways of thinking [...]

'Works of Bricolage,' Sideshows, and Survival When Lucille Conlin Horn was born in 1920, a fragile infant weighing only two pounds, she was not expected to live. Her twin sister died. But Lucille Horn did live for nearly a century, with a career, marriage and five children. Her survival is part of an extraordinary story of the wonderful, surprising and sometimes wrenching ways that innovations are introduced, resisted, and travel in unexpectedly circuitous routes before eventual adoption. In the late 1870s, a [...]