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By Zeeya MeraliThe Abel prize–considered the “Nobel” prize of mathematics–has been awarded to John Tate, recently retired from the University of Texas at Austin, for his work on algebraic number theory, the mathematical discipline that deals with connections between whole numbers and lies at the heart of Internet security.Established in 2002, the Abel Prize is presented annually by the King of Norway and carries a cash award of $1 million.“Number theory knits together the subtle and strange properties of whole numbers in a beautiful way,” says mathematician Ian Stewart at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK....

By slicing up and reconstructing the brain of Henry Gustav Molaison, researchers have confirmed predictions about a patient that has already contributed more than most to neuroscience. No big scientific surprises emerge from the anatomical analysis, which was carried out by Jacopo Annese of the Brain Observatory at the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues, and published today in Nature Communications. But it has confirmed scientists’ deductions about the parts of the brain involved in learning and memory....

A powdered form of alcohol called Palcohol is now approved for sale in the United States, but how safe is this product? Some health experts say they are concerned that powered alcohol could be abused by minors, or could be more easily more easily hidden and consumed in places where people are not allowed to have alcohol. But others argue that there is no reason the drug would be more hazardous than liquid alcohol....

THE BODY ELECTRIC I enjoyed reading “Shock and Awe,” Kenneth C. Catania’s article on the electric eel. I’m curious about what was done to determine how the eel is protected from shocking itself. My guess is that the nervous system is somehow insulated or shielded. BRUCE ROGERS Via e-mail CATANIA REPLIES: Rogers is in good company: lots of people are curious about why these eels don’t shock themselves—including me. No one seems to know the details, but I think Rogers is on the right track....

Editor’s Note (8/1/12): In July 2012 Jonah Lehrer admitted that he fabricated quotes in his book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. The review of his work in this article was posted before his admission. The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present by Eric R. Kandel. Random House, 2012 Neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Kandel has crafted a fascinating meditation on the interplay among art, psychology and brain science....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. June 1 marks the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through the end of November. It’s a busy time for us at the Tropical Meteorology Project in Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science, where we are issuing our 34th annual Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecast. In early April we predicted a slightly below-normal hurricane season for 2017, with a total of 11 named storms (average is 12), four hurricanes (average is six) and two major hurricanes (average is two)....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. We humans are uncommonly visual creatures. And those of us endowed with normal sight are used to thinking of our eyes as vital to how we experience the world. Vision is an advanced form of photoreception – that is, light sensing. But we also experience other more rudimentary forms of photoreception in our daily lives....

Cyber attacks may not be a new phenomenon but the recent successes scored against high-profile targets including CitiGroup, Google, RSA and government contractors such as Lockheed Martin underscore the targets’ current failure to block security threats enabled by the Internet. Malicious hackers use the very same technology that enables online banking, entertainment and myriad other communication services to attack these very applications, steal user data, and then cover their own tracks....

As humans, we aren’t born with formidable armaments or defenses, nor are we the strongest, fastest, or biggest species, yet despite this we are amazingly successful. For a long time it was thought that this success was because our enlarged brains allows each of us to be smarter than our competitors: better at abstract thinking, better with tools and better at adapting our behavior to those of our prey and predators....

The idea of a car taking off like a helicopter sounds like science fiction. But four years after the Pentagon funded its vision for a “Transformer” military flying machine, the project has found solid footing. Two prototype designs, one by aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin and one by aerospace start-up Advanced Tactics, offer possible paths for the automated flying car to become a reality on future battlefields ruled by robots....

Look for a PBS NewsHour story on X-ray body scanners, reported in conjunction with ProPublica, to air later this month. On Sept. 23, 1998, a panel of radiation safety experts gathered at a Hilton hotel in Maryland to evaluate a new device that could detect hidden weapons and contraband. The machine, known as the Secure 1000, beamed X-rays at people to see underneath their clothing. One after another, the experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the machine because it violated a longstanding principle in radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be X-rayed unless there is a medical benefit....

Scientists in China have designed a smart material that rapidly switches from one shape to anotherjust like a Venus flytrap plant snaps close when trapping prey. Inspired by carnivorous plant’s movement, researchers have been designing polymers that rapidly change shape in response to external stimuli. However, the snapping process is usually irreversible, which has so far limited the materials’ practical potential. Courtesy of ChemistryWorld Tao Xie and co-workers from Zhejiang University have now created a hydrogel-based system that is the first to undergo reversible snapping....

The food industry must stop dosing healthy livestock with antibiotics, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. For decades animals’ food and drinking water have often been spiked with medications aimed at boosting growth and preventing disease. But that practice can provide the necessary spark for antibiotic resistance that endangers human health, the agency warned. In a series of new recommendations aimed at preserving the efficacy of important drugs for people, the global health body called for national governments and food companies to follow rules that have existed in the European Union since 2006—such as not using drugs to promote livestock growth....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. New Mexico and Arizona are facing a dangerously early fire season. It has left neighborhoods in ashes and is having such devastating effects that President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration for New Mexico. Over 600 fires had broken out in the two states by early May, and large wildfires had burned through hundreds of homes near Ruidoso and Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Flagstaff, Arizona....

As climate change speeds up sea ice drift in the Arctic Ocean, environmental disasters like oil spills could take an even greater toll, new research shows. Arctic ice floes have been accelerating 14 percent per decade since the late 1980s, according to a study published this week in Earth’s Future by a team of Columbia and McGill university researchers. Each year, that acceleration helps push about 1 million square kilometers of sea ice — an area bigger than France and Germany combined — between different countries’ exclusive economic zones....

An estimated 5.7 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s disease—the most common type of dementia—and that number is expected to more than double by 2050. Early diagnosis is crucial for patients to benefit from the few therapies available. But no single assay or scan can deliver a conclusive diagnosis while a person is alive; instead doctors have to conduct numerous clinical and neuropsychological tests. So there is growing interest in developing artificial intelligence to identify Alzheimer’s based on brain imaging....

On the 15th of January in 1790, nine mutineers from HMS Bounty, 18 people from Tahiti and one baby arrived on Pitcairn Island—one of the most isolated habitable places on the planet. Surrounded by the southern Pacific Ocean and with hundreds of miles of open water between it and the nearest other islands, Pitcairn is the epitome of solitude. Before the Bounty escapees showed up, the island may not have seen human occupation of any kind since the 1400s, when it was still inhabited by Polynesians....

The lysosome was once thought of as the trash can of the cell, a dead-end destination where cellular debris was sent for disposal. But a growing body of research shows that this enzyme-filled vesicle is more active than it originally appeared to be—with some scientists now calling it a control center for cellular metabolism, the set of chemical reactions within a cell that keep it alive and well. Discoveries over the past decade “have elevated the lysosome to a decision-making center involved in the control of cellular growth and survival,” according to Roberto Zoncu, a cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley....

This week, a group of researchers promoted a different kind of global approach to addressing climate change: voluntary family planning. Though their proposal may raise eyebrows, researchers at the Population Reference Bureau and Worldwatch Institute say what they are advocating will both empower women and preserve the environment. They recently formed a joint working group of health, climate and population experts from around the world. They are drafting a report on how family planning could be incorporated into governments’ environmental policy....

In 1999 Robert Shapiro, then head of Monsanto, gave a stunning mea culpa at a Greenpeace conference in London. Monsanto’s first genetically engineered (GE) crops had been on the market for only three years, but they were facing fierce public backlash. After a botched rollout marred by lack of transparency, the company, Shapiro said, had responded with debate instead of dialogue. “Our confidence in this technology … has widely been seen, and understandably so, as condescension or indeed arrogance,” he said....