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LONELY LIFE John Gribbin makes a number of excellent arguments for humans being the only intelligent life in the galaxy in “Alone in the Milky Way” [“Beyond Us,” Part 3 of our single-topic issue, A Singular Species: The Science of Being Human]. But the same processes that eventually allowed intelligent life to emerge on our planet are still in play. As our galaxy continues to evolve, we might expect increasing opportunities for this situation to be repeated....

During COVID’s first wave, the streets of New York and other major cities became eerily empty. Mournful sirens replaced the usual bustle and din. But urban dwellers also heard something new: an abundance of birdsong. During walks outside—the only safe respite beyond their apartments—they breathed cleaner air. Lockdowns had meant fewer cars on the roads, and the effects were unmissable. Levels of nitrogen dioxide—a by-product of fossil fuels burned in cars and in electricity generation—were 30 percent lower along the I-95 corridor from Washington, D....

Numerous research papers are published every day worldwide. But which ones are most discussed by scientists and the public? Altmetric LLC in London tracks this question by charting how many times papers are noted in 14 online channels, ranging from a set of 5,000 research blogs to Facebook. (Scientific American is part of Macmillan, which is an investor in Altmetric.) Data for 2014 indicates there is a divide: the papers discussed most in academic channels (bluish circles) are different than those discussed most on social networks (red, orange and yellow circles)....

Gonorrhea is becoming as incurable as it was in the 1920s, before the first drugs to treat it were discovered. More than 60% of countries surveyed around the world have reported cases that resist last-resort antibiotics, according to an announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) on July 6. The announcement included information about a new gonorrhea drug in development. Since the 1930s, several classes of antibiotics have been used to kill the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrheae....

Scientific American presents House Call Doctor by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Do you suffer from daytime fatigue? Do you snore? If so, you may suffer from something called “obstructive sleep apnea.” This occurs in up to 10% of our population, but is thought to be one of those underestimated health conditions where a lot more people suffer from it, but just don’t know it yet (like diabetes)....

December marks the centennial of the death of conservationist John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club and helped create the Yosemite and Sequoia national parks, among others. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN asked four speakers from November’s World Parks Congress—a meeting held every 10 years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to discuss issues concerning protected areas—what would be at the top of their to-do lists for the next decade. “Muir saw the decline of the passenger pigeon....

CLIMATEWIRE | The African wild dog could be headed for a population crash because of how it’s adapting to climate change. An analysis of 30 years of demographic data and field observations in Botswana reveals that the endangered species, a distant relative of wolves, is experiencing higher pup mortality as rising average temperatures affect its annual denning season. Researchers call the condition a “phenological trap,” where a species shifts the timing of major life events as a response to environmental change....

For decades archaeologists have puzzled over the ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacán in Mexico. In the July Scientific American science writer Erik Vance reports on recent finds that are transforming researchers’ understanding of this enigmatic place and the people who lived there. For more on Teotihuacán, check out the resources below. Teotihuacán. René Millon in Scientific American, Vol. 216, pages 38–48; June 1967. Teotihuacán: Art from the City of the Gods....

By Quirin SchiermeierAs the blogosphere continues to buzz with discussion about e-mails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, UK, climatologists are insisting that the controversy will not discredit their science, or hamper a global climate deal.CRU confirmed on 20 November that more than 1,000 e-mails and documents had been copied from its servers and distributed on the Internet (see Nature 462, 397; 2009)....

What is required for a fulfilling life? First, the basics: food, shelter and, because we are social animals, companionship. If we are lucky, maybe we procreate and experience the selflessness of parenthood. What else? In his new book, writer and adman Leslie focuses on curiosity, the drive to explore and understand, which he believes is an essential but often overlooked criterion for a rewarding life. In recent years we have heard a lot about what is required for success—grit, perseverance and focus, among other traits....

Scientists usually look down on anecdotal evidence — but for the past month, alarmed UK researchers have been grabbing at every anecdote they can find. The reason: an urgent need to emphasize to politicians that UK science is already being damaged by Brexit, the country’s decision to leave the European Union. Because of uncertainty about the future, research leaders say, UK institutions that rely on EU funding are already seeing their staff dropped or demoted from planned collaborative EU grant applications, and top talent could already be leaving Britain....

The ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn’s moon Enceladus rises nearly to the surface in some places, a new study suggests. Measurements by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft indicate that as little as 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) of ice may cover the ocean in the moon’s south polar region, according to the study. “This discovery opens new perspectives to investigate the emergence of habitable conditions on the icy moons of the gas giant planets,” Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) project scientist for the Cassini-Huygens mission, said in a statement....

Click here for an extended version of this inteview What do you mean by the title Hot, Flat, and Crowded? It refers to the convergence of three big seismic events. The first is global warming. Second is what I call global flattening: the rise of middle classes all across the world that increasingly have the kind of energy and consumption patterns, demands and aspirations of Americans. Crowded refers to global population growth....

The U.S. government shutdown could delay the planned November launch of NASA’s next mission to Mars — perhaps pushing the flight all the way to 2016, scientists say. The shutdown has frozen launch preparations for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, known as Maven, which is slated to blast off Nov. 18 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Maven has until Dec. 7 to get off the ground, after which point it would have to wait 26 months for another favorable alignment of Earth and Mars....

Obamacare’s days may be numbered. The Affordable Care Act has survived dozens of recall attempts by the House of Representatives and two challenges brought to the U.S. Supreme Court. But with a Donald Trump presidency and a new Republican-led House and Senate, the bill—or at least certain key provisions—is almost certainly headed for the chopping block. The question now is what provisions may survive and when the death knell of the others will sound....

FOR YEARS the conventional wisdom on the relative cognitive strengths of humans and machines has held that humans excel at recognizing faces and other kinds of pattern matching, while computers rule on anything that smacks of number crunching. That may no longer be the case. The success of Foldit—an online puzzle created by biologists and computer scientists at the University of Washington—proves that human intuition can outperform computer algorithms on complex scientific problems....

I knew Eero Mäntyranta had magic blood, but I hadn’t expected to see it in his face. I had tracked him down above the Arctic Circle in Finland where he was—what else?—a reindeer farmer. He was all red. Not just the crimson sweater with knitted reindeer crossing his belly, but his actual skin. It was cardinal dappled with violet, his nose a bulbous purple plum. In the pictures I’d seen of him in Sports Illustrated in the 1960s—when he’d won three Olympic gold medals in cross-country skiing—he was still white....

By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A heavy toll may be exacted on elk, moose and other wildlife whose habitat has been destroyed by wildfires that have charred hundreds of thousands of acres (hectares) of forests and grasslands across the U.S. Northwest this summer, wildlife managers said on Thursday. Flames that in recent weeks have destroyed dozens of homes and prompted hundreds of residents to evacuate in Washington and Idaho have probably killed squirrels and small mammals unable to swiftly flee fire zones while fleeter creatures like deer likely escaped unharmed, wildlife biologists said....

Many energy experts and climate scientists question whether it is feasible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by century’s end. Today, the world’s preeminent energy institution offered a rebuttal. In a 227-page report, the International Energy Agency said it is possible to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit warming to 1.5 C. But it will require a wholesale makeover of the world’s energy system starting today. Dramatic action is required in the next decade to have any hope achieving a net-zero goal by 2050, IEA said....

“Look me straight in the eye” is not something autistic children find easy to do. Avoiding eye contact is a hallmark of this developmental disorder, and researchers have looked for the cause in the brain’s fusiform gyrus region, active in face recognition. But instead of an underactive fusiform, says Kim Dalton, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, an overactive amygdala may be at fault. Autism greatly weakens an individual’s capacity to socialize and communicate....