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People whose limbs have been amputated are often left with phantom sensations or pain in the missing appendage. Prosthetics don’t feel anything like the real thing. And people with artificial limbs have to keep looking down, because they can’t feel where their artificial arm or leg is in space. MIT Media Lab professor Hugh Herr knows these problems all too well. A double-leg amputee from a climbing accident in high school, Herr has struggled with prosthetics his whole adult life....

Even experts often resort to the word “bizarre” when describing pterosaurs, the winged dragons that ruled the skies for more than 160 million years. This is especially true of the group of short-tailed pterosaurs called anurognathids, which used to dart and bob through Mesozoic era forests like bats, hawking for insects. Now it appears anurognathids and other pterosaurs may also have worn a weirdly varied coat of feather- and fur-like structures, according to a new study published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution....

Inscrutable Intelligence? In “The Search for Intelligence,” Carl Zimmer relates the search for evidence of genetic influences on intelligence by Robert Plomin of the Institute of Psychiatry in London and others. Plomin’s many genetic studies have so far found only one plausible candidate for an “intelligence gene,” and it explains less than 1 percent of the variance on IQ tests. After such an extensive search, it seems likely that absence of evidence is evidence of absence....

DENYING ADVANTAGE Douglas T. Kenrick, Adam B. Cohen, Steven L. Neuberg and Robert B. Cialdini explore “The Science of Antiscience Thinking,” which includes both the denial of evolution and of climate change. There are two issues to the challenge of coping with antiscience thinking that they do not deal with. One is that evolution did not prioritize our mental capabilities for abstract careful analysis. Food and self-protection were far more important—and still are....

By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES, June 28 (Reuters) - Marine mammal rescue teams alerted boaters off Southern California on Tuesday to be on the lookout for a blue whale ensnared in the rigging of a commercial crab trap, a day after initial efforts to free the giant creature failed. Rescuers spent an entire day trying to cut free the 80-foot-long (24-meter-long) whale on Monday, ending the operation around nightfall, and hoped for a second chance at disentangling the distressed animal, authorities said....

How many times have you heard people say that something is “black and white,” meaning it is simple or crystal-clear? And because black and white are so obviously distinct, it would be only natural for us to assume that understanding how we see them must be equally straightforward. We would be wrong. The seeming ease of perceiving the two color extremes hides a formidable challenge confronting the brain every time we look at a surface....

Spotting a disease in its earliest stages can help to facilitate its treatment greatly, yet telltale clues are often hidden at a scale too small to study accurately. This hindrance has some researchers looking for ways to use high-powered atomic force microscopes (AFMs) to study individual molecules for disease markers “The greatest bottleneck in my work is the ability to handle molecules in such a way that does not produce false positives or negatives,” says Ozgur Sahin, a junior fellow at Harvard’s Rowland Institute....

The San people of southern Africa are among the most-studied indigenous groups in the world. Legions of researchers have investigated their hunter-gatherer lifestyles, click languages and ancient rock art, and San individuals were some of the first from Africa to have their whole genomes sequenced. But some San want a greater say in such research. On March 2, three communities in South Africa issued their own research-ethics code—thought to be the first from any indigenous group in Africa....

For decades, people with hepatitis C virus (HCV) have had to endure gruelling treatment regimens that include injections of the drug interferon, which can cause severe nausea and depression. But with the imminent approval of several highly effective oral antiviral drugs, and more on the way, researchers say that eradicating the infection worldwide is now a realistic goal. Unlike previous HCV treatments, which sought to enhance the immune system with interferon and other drugs, the latest group of oral medications interferes with the virus’s ability to replicate and make proteins....

Earlier this week the World Health Organization issued a global warning to travelers who might have come into contact with the deadly hantavirus while staying in Yosemite National Park in California. So far, three* people have died and at least half a dozen more have been sickened by the virus, which causes pulmonary distress. The outbreak is unusual in that cases of the virus are usually solitary and most have come from the high desert areas in or near New Mexico....

From the first soothing lullabies babies hear to the funereal dirges that accompany the deceased, music is a fixture of the human experience. The latest findings on the cultural basis of singing have ascertained that certain song types—whether lullaby, dance, love or healing melodies—turn up in all cultures. And each kind of song has common cross-cultural acoustic features. By analyzing a database of ethnographic descriptions and recordings of songs from around the world, a research team from multiple universities discovered commonalities in acoustic features such as tone, tempo and pitch....

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention detected more than 220 cases last year of a rare breed of “nightmare bacteria” that are virtually untreatable and capable of spreading genes that make them impervious to most antibiotics, according to a report released Tuesday. Although the CDC has warned of the danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria for years, the new report helps illustrate the scope of the problem. Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, said she was surprised by the extent of the spread....

While ideology and politics often divide Washington, D.C., Congress is steadfastly united in a common cause: curing cancer. As a Democrat from Delaware and a Republican from Kansas, both of our lives have been touched by this disease. The U.S. has seen great advances in cancer treatment, but they are not enough. To ensure that our children and grandchildren will not be touched by the tragedy of the disease the way we have been, we must work together to treat cancer with the same urgency that we tackled the pandemic—starting with a robust, sustained investment in cancer research through the National Cancer Institute (NCI)....

Climate change is causing the U.S. military to alter its plans in the Arctic as Russia takes advantage of a warming world to deploy radar and personnel in thawing regions, two generals told a Senate panel yesterday. The assessment comes as the White House is recruiting researchers to raise uncertainty about climate science and the risk that rising temperatures pose to national security. The generals told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that climate change is already affecting the military....

Nearly 130 scientists today asked the Interior Department to change a policy set under the Bush administration guiding how agencies decide whether a species is endangered. At issue is guidance issued in 2007 that redefined when the Fish and Wildlife Service would protect a species as “endangered” or “threatened.” The Endangered Species Act requires protection of any species in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range....

Woo-hoo, d’oh, or meh? Which of these Simpsonian reactions is appropriate to the fact, revealed by a 2019 survey conducted by researchers at Penn State University and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), that about two in three—67 percent—of public high school biology teachers are presenting evolution forthrightly, emphasizing the broad scientific consensus on evolution while not giving any credence to creationism? Only in the context of the long and contentious history of evolution education in the United States is it clear what the most plausible answer is....

Scientists and gardeners alike seem unable to resist the charms of a flamboyant flower or towering stalk. A new study has found that botanists’ research inexorably skews toward showy plants, whereas the drabbest, dullest and shortest are often left behind—even if they are endangered. The analysis, published in Nature Plants, reviewed 280 studies conducted from 1975 to 2020 on 113 plant species in the southwestern Alps, a major biodiversity hotspot. Researchers collected data on the plants’ morphology (traits such as size and color), as well as their ecology and rarity....

By Marice Richter DALLAS (Reuters) - The first ban on new hydraulic fracturing in Texas went into effect on Tuesday in the city of Denton, a month after voters deemed the oil and gas extraction method behind the U.S. energy boom a community nuisance. The Texas Oil & Gas Association, an industry group, and the Texas General Land Office filed a lawsuit shortly after voters in the city of 123,000 approved the ban on Nov....

Ah, but what price color? If you want it from a laser printer, the price can be pretty steep. But not today: For a limited time, and while supplies last, the Microsoft Store has the Dell 1250c color LED printer for $69.99 shipped. (Sales tax may apply in some states.) Regular price: $145. Update: As of 11 a.m. ET, the printer is out of stock. But check back throughout the day in case Microsoft makes more inventory available....

BERLIN—From 200 miles above, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield looked out a window of the International Space Station at the shimmering lights below and snapped a photo of Germany’s capital. At night, the city’s streetlamps trace the roads splaying from the city center like a spiderweb. The lights and the darkness in between chronicle the city’s modern history. In the photo, you can see where the Unter den Linden boulevard meets the Brandenburg Gate at the edge of Tiergarten, which appears as a black oval with a golden skewer through it....