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Articles by Seth Fletcher
Got a tick bite? Here's what to do—and what
not to do Knowing what kind of tick bit you and where you got it can help inform next steps Tick season is in full swing, and unfortunately for us humans, these parasites are having a banner year. Across the U.S., weekly rates of emergency room visits for tick bites have been trending higher than in all years since 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's tick bite tracker.
How the success of D-Day hinged on a weather forecast
As General Dwight D. Eisenhower prepared for D-Day, he needed a forecast. The new movie Pressure shows the tense make-or-break weather prediction that led to the successful invasion of Europe that spelled the beginning of the end of World War II If it weren't for a weather forecast, D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history—would have taken place on June 5, as originally planned. And if that had happened, the invasion would have ended in disaster.
The First Milky Way Black Hole Image Lets Scientists Test Physics
Deep in the heart of the Milky Way, strange things happen. This is a place where stars slingshot around apparently empty space at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Scientists have long thought that only a supermassive black hole could explain the stars' movements, but until this year, they hesitated to say that outright.
How Astronomers Finally Captured a Photo of our Own Galaxy’s Black Hole
Tulika Bose: This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Tulika Bose. Today—super massive news from space. The first image of the super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, was just released by astronomers this morning. I'm here talking to Seth Fletcher our Chief Features Editor for Scientific American. He literally wrote a book on the event horizon telescope, and is our resident expert on all things black holes.
The Black Hole in the Middle of our Galaxy Looks Like This
The first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way sagittarius a star was just released by astronomers technically black holes are unseeable they trap all light that falls in that's why photographing one is sort of a paradox this is actually a picture of the black hole's shadow a dark circular silhouette set against the glowing matter surrounding the black hole.
The First Picture of the Black Hole at the Milky Way's Heart Has Been Revealed
The mystery at the heart of the Milky Way has finally been solved. This morning, at simultaneous press conferences around the world, the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) revealed the first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It’s not the first picture of a black hole this collaboration has given us—that was the iconic image of M87*, which they revealed on April 10, 2019. But it’s the one they wanted most.
From AI to Zika: AAAS Conference Highlights
Steve Mirsky: Welcome to Scientific American's Science Talk posted on February 16, 2016. I am Steve Mirsky. A small contingent of Scientific American editors was at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which ran from February 10th to February 15th in Washington, D.C. At the end of the day's sessions on February 13th, I met up with Scientific American's Mark Fischetti, Dina Maron, and Seth Fletcher to hear about what they had heard about.
First Flexible Airplane Wing Takes Flight
In our May 2014 issue, Sridhar Kota, a professor of engineering at the University of Michigan and founder and president of the company FlexSys, published an article about his long-running campaign to take complex, multipart machines and redesign them as flexible, one-piece devices (subscription required).
Truth, Lies & Uncertainty
Searching for reality in unreal times Credit: Red Nose Studio On July 8 President Donald Trump stood in the East Room of the White House and delivered a speech celebrating his administration's environmental leadership.
How the Black Hole Said Cheese
Welcome to Scientific American’s Science Talk, posted on April 29th, 2019. I’m Steve Mirsky. On this episode: CLIP That’s Seth Fletcher. He’s the author of the book Einstein’s Shadow: A Black Hole, a Band of Astronomers, and the Quest to See the Unseeable. It’s an account of the long struggle to capture that image of a black hole that was announced on April 10th.
How the Black Hole Said Cheese on Apple Podcasts
21 min Scientific American 's chief features editor Seth Fletcher talks about his book Einstein's Shadow, an account of the long effort to image a black hole that recently came to fruition. 21 min Top Podcasts In Science & Medicine See All More by Scientific American See All
An Exit Chute from the Universe: The Story of a Historic Effort to Image a Black Hole
After more than a decade of effort, a global network of radio telescopes has revealed the first-ever picture of an enigmatic hole in spacetime This artist’s impression depicts the black hole at the heart of the enormous elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87), the target of breakthrough observations by the Event Horizon Telescope. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser It actually worked.
Einstein's Shadow
Skip to content Share This Title: A Black Hole, a Band of Astronomers, and the Quest to See the Unseeable by Seth Fletcher On Sale: 10/09/2018 $26.99 Spend $49 and get FREE shipping on HC.com Quantity: About Product Details Praise A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE Einstein’s Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about...
How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole? With a Telescope as Big as the Earth
We live 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. That’s a rounding error by cosmological standards, but still — it’s far. When the light now reaching Earth from the galactic center first took flight, people were crossing the Bering Strait land bridge, hunting woolly mammoths along the way. The distance hasn’t stopped astronomers from drawing a fairly accurate map of the heart of the galaxy.
EINSTEIN'S SHADOW
A veteran science journalist builds a fascinating narrative based on his exclusive access to a group of astronomers bent on photographing a black hole, a near-impossible feat of Nobel Prize proportions.
EPA on Keystone XL: Significant Climate Impacts from Tar Sands Pipeline
In a draft assessment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, consultants for the U.S. State Department judged that building it would have no significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Why? Because the analysts assumed the tar sands oil would find a way out with or without the new pipeline. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not agree. Keystone XL's ability to carry an additional 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day is vital to expanded production of the tarry crude in Alberta.
Could Your Texts, Tweets and Selfies Be Funding War in Africa?
Hard to believe that our mundane social media banter could have an impact on the civil war raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than a decade. The problem isn’t the content of these messages, it’s the devices used to send them. Smartphones, tablets, PCs and other devices often have electrical components made from so-called “conflict minerals”—gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten—taken from mines in the DRC, where armed groups take a cut of the profits to fund their violent campaigns.
The Solar Cell That Turns 1 Photon into 2 Electrons
Solar cells are picky. If an incoming photon has too little energy, the cell won’t absorb it. If a photon has too much, the excess is wasted as heat. No matter what, a silicon solar cell can never generate more than one electron from a single photon. Such harsh quantum realities severely limit the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells, and scientists have spent decades looking for work-arounds.
Clear Skies, with a Chance of Black Holes
Last Tuesday, the weather at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) command center in Cambridge, Massachusetts couldn’t have been much worse: it was rainy and barely 40 degrees F. But that wasn’t important. What mattered were the conditions in Hawaii, Arizona, Spain, central Mexico, northern Chile, and at the South Pole. Was the weather good in all those places simultaneously? If so, they had a shot at imaging a black hole.
It's Official: Next Year, Astronomers will Try to Take the First Picture of a Black Hole
Certain scientific breakthroughs always seem to be a few years away. The first direct observation of a black hole has long fallen into this category. Maybe not for much longer: the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope have scheduled their first full-on attempt to image the black hole at the center of the Milky Way for next spring.
Astronomers Will Try to Take the First Picture of a Black Hole Next Year
Certain scientific breakthroughs always seem to be a few years away. The first direct observation of a black hole has long fallen into this category. Maybe not for much longer: the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope have scheduled their first full-on attempt to image the black hole at the center of the Milky Way for next spring.
Everything You Wanted to Know about This Year's Nobel Prizes, but Might Have Missed
Last week the Nobel committee selected 2016’s laureates, spotlighting the biggest advances in chemistry, physics and medicine. This year’s honorees snagged prizes for understanding exotic states of matter, tiny machines and cells that eat themselves. If you missed any of the news, here’s a quick list of who won, what they did, and how humanity may benefit. When things get cold, they get weird. Understanding that weirdness earned David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and John M.
A Trippy Cosmic History Lesson: SA Editors Discuss Terrence Malick's "Voyage of Time"
Part science documentary, part meditation on the meaning of life, director Terrence Malik’s (“The Tree of Life,” “The Thin Red Line”) new IMAX movie “Voyage of Time” is hard to categorize. Scientific American editors Clara Moskowitz and Seth Fletcher caught an early screening in New York last week. A few days later, they G-chatted their impressions of the film. A lightly edited transcript of that conversation follows. Clara Moskowitz What did you make of this movie?
Spacetime Opera: Janna Levin on LIGO and the Hunt for Gravitational Waves
Five years ago, Janna Levin decided to write a book about black holes, gravitational waves, and the sounds of the universe. Somewhere along the way she shelved that book and wrote a different one—the fascinating, dishy inside story of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, now well known by its acronym, LIGO.
From A.I. to Zika: AAAS Conference Highlights
Scientific American editors Mark Fischetti, Dina Maron and Seth Fletcher talk about the info they picked up at the just concluded annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC. Subjects covered include gravitational waves, whether there's really a war on science, the growing concern over Zika virus, sea level rise and advances in artificial intelligence.
Why You Should Be Excited about This Week's Big LIGO Announcement
They’ve called not one press conference but three of them, at least. Simultaneous events are now scheduled for Thursday in Washington, D.C., London, and Paris, and it seems like more are being announced every hour. We can assume the scientists of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have something important to tell us.* As you've probably heard, rumor is that LIGO has detected gravitational waves, possibly ones caused by the merger of two stellar-mass black holes.
Stephen Hawking's New Black-Hole Paper, Translated: An Interview with Co-Author Andrew Strominger
In the mid 1970s, Stephen Hawking made a string of unnerving discoveries about black holes—that they could evaporate, even explode, and destroy all information about what had fallen in. Physicists spent the next 40 years sorting through the wreckage. Then last year, at a conference in Stockholm, Hawking said that he and some collaborators were close to a solution to the so-called black-hole information paradox. Details, however, would have to wait. Now the details are here—at least some of them.
Confirmed: Black Holes are Magnetism-Powered Eating Machines
The long list of unanswered questions about black holes contains one particularly surprising item: How do they eat? Unlike many of the riddles that black holes pose, this one seems so simple: What do you mean we don’t know how things fall into a black hole? The question makes sense when you stop thinking about black holes as cosmic vacuum cleaners—which they are not—and start seeing them as astrophysical objects that (in many cases) play by the same orbital rules as stars and planets.
Confirmed: Black Holes are Magnet-Powered Eating Machines
Matter swirls around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, where astronomers have observed magnetic fields (in blue in this illustration) using the Event Horizon Telescope. The long list of unanswered questions about black holes contains one particularly surprising item: How do they eat? Unlike many of the riddles that black holes pose, this one seems so simple: What do you mean we don’t know how things fall into a black hole?
Injectable Probes Could Transform Brain Monitoring
To solve the mysteries of the brain, scientists need to delicately, precisely monitor neurons in living subjects. Brain probes, however, have generally been brute-force instruments. A team at Harvard University led by chemist Charles Lieber hopes that silky soft polymer mesh implants will change this situation. So far the researchers have tested the mesh, which is embedded with electronic sensors, in living mice.
Why Colliding Galaxies Never Go out of Style
Last month when scientists announced new evidence that in a distant galaxy, two giant black holes are spiraling toward each other, destined for a cataclysmic merger, they got a lot of attention. More than one non-journalist, non-scientist friend excitedly mentioned the news to me. (At least one of those friends missed the part about the black holes being 3.5 billion light years away, as opposed to in our backyard.) It was a very cool finding.
Bottled Lightning
Fletcher makes a good case that the electric-car trend may soon be able to shed its dubious reputation as a public-private hybrid and roll under its own power. - There's never a dull page as Mr. Fletcher slaloms through the science, the business deals and the political pitfalls. - Bottled Lightning is a gripping introduction to this sophisticated technology and its place in our society. - A well-written, smart and--when Fletcher gets rolling in the last quarter of the book--rollicking story.
Hot Times on the Island of Nobels
When a scientist wins a Nobel Prize, the King of Sweden hands that person a golden megaphone. It’s not the loudest instrument of its kind, but it has a bright, luxuriant finish, and it is guaranteed to work for the lifetime of its owner.
Hot Times on the Island of Nobels
When a scientist wins a Nobel Prize, the King of Sweden hands that person a golden megaphone. It’s not the loudest instrument of its kind, but it has a bright, luxuriant finish, and it is guaranteed to work for the lifetime of its owner.
Climate Chatter Dominates Island of Nobels
When a scientist wins a Nobel Prize, the King of Sweden hands that person a golden megaphone. It’s not the loudest instrument of its kind, but it has a bright, luxuriant finish, and it is guaranteed to work for the lifetime of its owner.
How Precision Medicine Will Transform Cancer Treatment [VIDEO]
LINDAU, GERMANY— Cancers, revered researcher Harold Varmus told me today, are like snowflakes, each one unique. But cancers also belong to families, and members of those families share vulnerabilities—genetic weak spots that scientists are learning to target with increasing precision.
Rocket Fuel: Firing the Space Launch System's Engines [Video]
If it surprises you to hear that NASA has recently been firing up test engines for the biggest American deep-space rocket since the Saturn 5, a vehicle that could take flight in as little as three years from now, you are probably not alone. Despite the space agency’s success putting robots on Mars, the U.S. human spaceflight program has long been foundering. The space shuttle was retired in 2011 after twice being stuck by tragedy and Pres.
Finding "Fringes": New Event Horizon Telescope Detections Start Trickling In
New observations with the South Pole Telescope prove that the station will soon be able to join a worldwide network of observatories in a bid to image the event horizon of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Computing after Moore’s Law
Fifty years ago this month Gordon Moore published a historic paper with an amusingly casual title: “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits.” The document was Moore’s first articulation of a principle that, after a little revision, became elevated to a law: Every two years the number of transistors on a computer chip will double. As anyone with even a casual interest in computing knows, Moore’s law is responsible for the information age.
Computing after Moore’s Law [Slide Show]
One of the more radical moves a manufacturer of silicon computer chips could make would be to ditch silicon altogether. It’s not likely to happen soon but last year IBM did announce that it was spending $3 billion to look for alternatives.....[ More ] One of the more radical moves a manufacturer of silicon computer chips could make would be to ditch silicon altogether. It’s not likely to happen soon but last year IBM did announce that it was spending $3 billion to look for alternatives.
Building an Earth-Size Telescope, 1 Station at a Time
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. Imagine a trio of aerobatic aircraft. Over the years they’ve gotten very good at their routine. But they want to add another five or six or seven members. They also want to upgrade from propeller planes to jets, with custom engines and digital avionics.
The Inner Lives of Robots: An Interview with Filmmaker Alex Garland
Like self-replicating machines, robot movies are taking over Hollywood. Yet Ex Machina, which opened last Friday in New York and Los Angeles, is so smart and stylish that it stands out among the swarm. In the film, a 26-year-old coder named Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), who works for the online search giant Blue Book, wins a chance to spend a week with the company founder, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) at his compound in Alaska.
The Inner Lives of Robots: Interview with filmmaker Alex Garland
Like self-replicating machines, robot movies are taking over Hollywood. Yet Ex Machina, which opened last Friday in New York and Los Angeles, is so smart and stylish that it stands out among the swarm. In the film, a 26-year-old coder named Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), who works for the online search giant Blue Book, wins a chance to spend a week with the company founder, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) at his compound in Alaska.
How Transparency Will Change The World [Video]
In the March 2015 Scientific American, Daniel Dennett, the Tufts University philosopher and cognitive scientist, and Deb Roy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and Twitter’s chief media scientist, write about the society-altering consequences of digital transparency.
What “Chappie” Says-and Doesn’t Say-About Artificial Intelligence
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. I’m not a scold about scientific accuracy in film. As long as a movie is not built on a fundamentally stupid premise (“Lucy,” the Scarlet Johansson vehicle predicated on the false notion that humans use only 10 percent of their brains, comes to mind), I am happy to let myself be entertained. You might say I endeavor to use only 10 percent of my brain when I watch Hollywood movies.
Scientists are hunting for black holes on the South Pole
Each of the telescopes that the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) are currently working to bring into their black-hole-observing, planet-size array is a special case. Mexico’s Large Millimeter Telescope, for example, is an enormous single dish on top of an exceptionally high mountain, not to mention the biggest science project of any kind in its country. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is a billion-dollar class instrument, the world’s most powerful radio telescope.
Hunting Black Holes at the South Pole
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. Each of the telescopes that the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) are currently working to bring into their black-hole-observing, planet-size array is a special case. Mexico’s Large Millimeter Telescope, for example, is an enormous single dish on top of an exceptionally high mountain, not to mention the biggest science project of any kind in its country.
The New Chevy Volt Is Impressively Unremarkable
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. Over the holidays, while visiting family in Southwest Missouri, where I grew up, I saw one of the oddest sights on local roadways since armadillos started showing up as road kill: multiple Chevrolet Volts. In cities and suburbs, cars like the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and Tesla Model S are pretty common. But Southwest Missouri is different.
10 Weirdest Things You’ve Taken Through Airport Security: Survey Results
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. This week millions of people will find themselves standing in an airport-security line, hoping their supposedly travel-size toiletries don’t create a national security incident. If you find yourself in a similar situation, remember this: at least you’re not transporting human remains that you just unearthed from a Mayan burial site.
What Was the Most Disappointing New Technology of 2014?
What Was the Most Disappointing New Technology of 2014? Tell us what big tech announcement or new gadget made you roll your eyes December 19, 2014 |By Seth Fletcher Share Your OpinionUpload Wearable computers, ultrahigh-definition TVs, package-delivering drones: the tech industry promised big things in 2014. Now that the year has come and gone, it’s time to reflect. Which of the year’s new gadgets or big tech announcements impressed us the least?
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