Scientific American - USA (2019-12)

December 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 1

December 2019

VOLUME 321, NUMBER 6

Photograph by Spencer Lowell

S E C U R I T Y

38 GPS Down

Hacking the system we all rely on

is not difficult, and the U.S. has

no defense in place. By Paul Tullis

CONSCIOUSNESS

46 Proust among

the Machines

Within our lifetimes, computers

could approach human-level

intelligence. But will they

consciously experience the world?

By Christof Koch

PHYSICS

50 Escape from a Black Hole

New observations could find clues

about how information can break

free from a black hole, rescuing

the principles of quantum

mechanics. By Steven B. Giddings

PALEOANTHROPOLOGY

58 A Face from Deep Time

A long-sought fossil cranium

could redraw the human family

tree. By Kate Wong

GEOSCIENCE

60 Fire Tornadoes

Researchers are getting closer to

predicting when and where these

lethal phenomena will appear.

By Jason M. Forthofer

A S T R O N O M Y

68 X-ray Vision

After two decades in space, the

world’s leading x-ray telescope—

the Chandra Observatory—is still

re veal ing new secrets of the cosmos.

By Belinda J. Wilkes

ON THe cOVer

DNA-based data storage, social robots and

the next best thing to teleportation are among

the potential breakthroughs profiled in our

annual special report on emerging technologies,

produced in collaboration with the World

Economic Forum.

Illustration by Mark Ross Studio.

60

SPECIAL REPORT

TOP 10

EMERGING

TECHNOLOGIES

OF 2019

A collaboration between

Scientific American and

the World Economic Forum.

26

© 2019 Scientific American