Rubbery Glass, Zero-Gravity Life and More: Scientific American’s March Issue

Feb 17, 2015 |By Sarah Lewin

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HPV is the most widespread sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. and abroad, yet many people still go unvaccinated—especially men. Current HPV vaccination campaigns focus largely on women’s risk for cervical cancer but researchers have recently connected HPV to a surge in head and neck cancer in younger men. Experts suggest a push for male vaccination to decrease HPV-caused cancers in both sexes.

Nuclear power, which is also considered a cancer risk by some, is already on the decline in the U.S. With the closure of the Vermont Yankee reactor, the nation’s fleet now numbers under 100. As reactors go offline without replacements, the country will be increasingly reliant on natural gas and old, flawed reactor designs.

According to lore, cockroaches will be one of the few survivors of a nuclear winter—but that’s not their only supertrait. Scientists have found that cockroaches’ incredible night vision works like time-lapse photography, building an image photon by photon. Understanding how they do it could lead to better night vision for mankind.

Humans report worse vision while in space as well as headaches and myriad other health effects from living in zero gravity. In March NASA plans to send one member of an identical twin astronaut duo to the International Space Station to investigate the influence microgravity conditions have on DNA expression, the microbiome, cellular aging and more.

Also in March’s Advances: