Fenella Saunders
American Scientist
Durham, NC, United States
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Past articles by Fenella:
A Tour of the Solar System
Over the years, American Scientist has been honored with articles from authors who are science leads on numerous NASA missions. For instance, in 1972, the magazine featured articles by Apollo 15 astronaut Joseph Allen on that Moon mission, and rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun on the then-upcoming Space Shuttle program. In the magazine’s more recent history, going back to 2000, we’ve had articles… → Read More
Lemurs in Context
Although he was studying brown lemurs at the time, Ian Colquhoun took the advice of his graduate advisor and switched to black lemurs, because a nearby zoo had a population with which he could familiarize himself with captive observation before continuing his studies in the field. During his time as a graduate student, Colquhoun received a Sigma Xi GIAR grant that helped him complete the first… → Read More
The Crazy Anatomy of Horned Dinosaurs
On September 29, 2020, Eric K. Lund, the paleontology conservation lab manager at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences gave a virtual talk for American Scientist’s lunchtime seminar series on his research with horned (or ceratopsian) dinosaurs. After, he was interviewed by Brian Malow. A podcast of the interview is below, followed by a summary of the live tweets that highlighted points… → Read More
First Person: Richard Leakey
Connecting human origins with wildlife conservation → Read More
Getting a Reaction
EUREKA! DETAILS TO FOLLOW: Cartoons on Chemistry. Sidney Harris. 162 pp. Science Cartoons Plus Publishing, 2018. $14.95. Since their first appearance in the pages of American Scientist in 1970, the science cartoons of Sidney Harris have remained a stalwart favorite among readers. Although Harris has put together a few dozen collections of his works, his latest is the only one to focus… → Read More
Croplands Up Close
A highly detailed map of the world’s productive areas for crops corrects some misconceptions about how much is being grown and where. → Read More
First Person: Karen Oates
What can professors do to make their courses more innovative? My job is to connect the science that I’m teaching to what matters to students. I used to teach cell biology. I also taught a course called Cancer. Cancer is cell biology. When I taught Cancer, I made sure that all the elements that I needed to teach in cell biology were still taught, but in a very different way. This was, for me, a… → Read More
First Person: M. V. Ramana »
SPOTLIGHT First Person: M. V. Ramana Since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, the nuclear power industry has been in the spotlight worldwide. M. V. Ramana, a physicist with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, and a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer, studies nuclear power in the wider context of energy production, and looks at public… → Read More
New Strategies to Curb Bacterial Infections »
New Strategies to Curb Bacterial Infections How can bacterial infections be stopped? What about bacterial resistance? To what extent are bacteria "communicating" with one another to overcome our immune systems, chemical cleansers, and antibiotics? Purdue University chemistry professor Herman Sintim—a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer—spoke with American Scientist's managing editor Fenella Saunders… → Read More
Moogfest Amps Up Connections between Science and Music »
Moogfest Amps Up Connections between Science and Music Moogfest, a long-standing music festival that celebrates the legacy of pioneering electronic musician Robert Moog, will take place in Durham, North Carolina, on May 18–21. This year’s lineup includes several scientists, who’ll speak on topics ranging from neurology to robotics. American Scientist executive editor Fenella Saunders discussed… → Read More
Cracking with Electricity »
SCIENCE OBSERVER Cracking with Electricity Faults seem to give off a warning signal before they slip Troy Shinbrot is no stranger to research that defies standard beliefs. The Rutgers University biomedical engineer focuses on grains and powders, specifically how they mix and gain electric charges. A few years ago, this specialty led him to work on what’s called the Brazil nut effect: In a group… → Read More
Sounding Out Muscle Health »
SCIENCE OBSERVER Sounding Out Muscle Health The noise of contraction could help to diagnose disease The simple act of bending a knee requires the coordination of more strings than a symphony orchestra. Each muscle cell is made up of many tiny filaments of proteins. When a muscle contracts, these fibers change shape and slide past one another, creating vibrations. "It's like plucking a string,… → Read More
First Person: M. V. Ramana »
SPOTLIGHT First Person: M. V. Ramana Since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, the nuclear power industry has been in the spotlight worldwide. M. V. Ramana, a physicist with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, and a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer, studies nuclear power in the wider context of energy production, and looks at public… → Read More
Bio-Responsive Smart Drug Delivery »
Bio-Responsive Smart Drug Delivery When Zhen Gu first applied to work in the United States, the immigration officer asked him what about his line of work, and he said “drug delivery.” Dr. Gu jokes that the officer looked at him like he was some kind of illegal narcotics dealer from the television series Breaking Bad, but he points out that his research really is about breaking up bad things, by… → Read More
Enter the Dragons
A brief review of Dragonflies: Magnificent Creatures of Water, Air, and Land, by Pieter van Dokkum → Read More
Making the Cut
Japanese paper arts are inspiring materials scientists with new ways to turn flat sheets into functional devices. → Read More
The Bonds that Make Everything
MOLECULES: The Elements and Architecture of Everything. Theodore Gray, with photographs by Nick Mann. 240 pp. Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2014. $29.95. E-book app for iPhone and iPad, Touch Press, 2014. $13.99. In his book The Elements, Theodore Gray, a chemist and cofounder of Wolfram Research, depicted the most basic of building blocks in gorgeous detail. Cast from the same aesthetic… → Read More
The Life of a Star
A review of STEPHEN HAWKING: Riddles of Time and Space, by Michael Lent and Brian McCarthy, with art by Zach Bassett → Read More
When the World Went Digital
The legacy of the MANIAC and other computers is the breakthrough in both logic architecture and software that they began. But in the background there is also the history of nuclear weapons, the modeling of which was a driving force for building the computers. Indeed, without the pressure during that era to produce nuclear weapons, it’s likely that many of these machines would not have been… → Read More
Tying Water into Knots
A single ring is easy—how about a chain or a trefoil? → Read More