Scientific American - February 2011

Spacecraft Do-It-Yourself Satellites Brain Science How Language Shapes Thought February 2011 ScientificAmerican.com Scaling Back Obesıty What science says about losing weight and keeping it off page 40 © 2011 Scientific American Fish Farms A Blue Food Revolution? You never stop growing.™ Retiring well means different things to different people, but we all Which is why millions of mutual fund investors rely on our strategic help their dreams come true. Talk to your financial advisor about Summary prospectuses, if available, or prospectuses for the Funds containing objectives, risks, charges and expenses, and read the summary prospectus prospectus contain this and other information about the Fund. gsam.com Untitled-3 1 12/21/10 2:23:16 PM invest with the hope of growing old gracefully. expertise and risk management experience to mutual funds from Goldman Sachs. more information may be obtained from your financial advisor. Please consider a Fund’s and the prospectus carefully before investing. The summary prospectus, and/or the Goldman, Sachs & Co. is the distributor of the Goldman Sachs Funds. ©Goldman, Sachs & Co., 2010. All rights reserved. Untitled-3 2 12/21/10 2:23:17 PM on the cover If current trends continue, an excess of weight will surpass smoking as the primary cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. Health experts, however, often overlook the best near-term strategy for stopping the obesity epidemic: behavior-modification methods that have been shown to change people’s eating and exercise habits. Illustration by Bryan Christie. February 2011 Volume 304, Number 2 78 feature s influence how they function, in both health and disease. By Tom Misteli HEALTH 40 How to Fix the Obesity Crisis Although science has revealed a lot about metabolic processes that influence our weight, the key to success may lie elsewhere. By David H. Freedman space 48 Citizen Satellites Even a small research group can now afford to send its own science experiments into Earth orbit. By Alex Soojung-Kim Pang and Bob Twiggs SUSTAINABILIT Y 54 The Blue Food Revolution New fish farms out at sea, and cleaner operations along the shore, could provide the world with a rich supply of much needed protein. By Sarah Simpson cognitive psychology 62 How Language Shapes Thought The languages we speak affect our perceptions of the world. By Lera Boroditsky ECOLOGY 74 A Friend to Aliens Ecologist Mark Davis thinks that his colleagues exaggerate threats from invasive species. Interview by Brendan Borrell ASTROPHYSICS 78 X-ray Vision Thanks to amazing mirrors, NASA’s NuSTAR telescope, scheduled to launch in 2012, will peer past clouds of dust to reveal hidden phenomena in the cosmos. By Fiona Harrison and Charles J. Hailey NEUROPROSTHETICS 80 Mind Out of Body Brain-wave control of machines will allow the wheelchair-bound to walk and portends a future of mind melds and thought downloads. By Miguel A. L. Nicolelis HISTORY OF SCIENCE 84 Jefferson’s Moose BIOLOGY 66 The Inner Life of the Genome The way our genes are arrayed and move in the 3-D space of the nucleus turns out to profoundly Thomas Jefferson waged a second revolution, fighting the image created by European naturalists of a degenerate America. By Lee Dugatkin 2  Scientific American, February 2011 Photograph by Floto + Warner © 2011 Scientific American Be heard. Hear. The Bose® Bluetooth® headset. Finally, better sound quality for both ends of your calls. Introducing the first Bluetooth headset from Bose that does what others cannot. The Bose Bluetooth headset lets you hear and be heard, even as noise l