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Last week U.S. officials claimed the Russian government was planning to publish a video of a staged “attack” by Ukrainian forces. The officials said their announcement was an attempt to preemptively halt a misinformation campaign that could serve as a pretext for Russian forces to invade. Such propaganda campaigns have been used in wars throughout history—but today’s social media landscape allows misinformation to spread further and have greater impact. In fact, manipulating social feeds with false accounts, bots, targeted ads and other methods can be considered a type of cyberattack....

As maxims go, “time is relative” may not be quite as famous as “time is money.” But the notion that time speeds up or slows down depending on how fast one object is traveling relative to another surely ranks as one of Albert Einstein’s most inspired insights. The term “time dilation” was coined to describe the slowing of time caused by motion. To illustrate the effect of time dilation, Einstein proposed an example—the twin paradox—that is arguably the most famous thought experiment in relativity theory....

I had been working quite happily on the basic biology of the brain when a good friend of mine called for advice about his daughter, who had just been diagnosed with autism. I could hear the anguish and fear in his voice when he asked me whether there was anything that could be done to make her better. I told him about the standard-care therapies, including Intensive Behavioral Intervention, Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, Applied Behavior Analysis, and the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM)....

One of the most perplexing phenomena in astronomy has come of age. The fleeting blasts of energetic cosmic radiation of unknown cause, now known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), were first detected a decade ago. At the time, many astronomers dismissed the seemingly random blasts as little more than glitches. And although key facts, such as what causes them, are still largely a mystery, FRBs are now accepted as a genuine class of celestial signal and have spawned a field of their own....

Africa has suffered about three million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic—at least officially. The continent’s comparatively low number of reported cases has puzzled scientists and prompted many theories about its exceptionalism, from its young population to its countries’ rapid and aggressive lockdowns. But numerous seroprevalence surveys, which use blood tests to identify whether people have antibodies from prior infection with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), point to a significant underestimation of African countries’ COVID burden....

When Greg Dyke accepted the job as the BBC’s new director-general in early 2000, he found a troubled organization in need of reform. Other executives advised him to start off by presenting a clear vision for the broadcasting company and then implement it by directing and delegating. Dyke took a different approach: he traveled for five months before stepping into his new role, visiting offices across the UK, and asking BBC employees what he should do to make things better for them, for viewers, and for listeners....

An unlikely source is revealing some secretive habits of whales: the group tasked with monitoring nuclear weapons testing. The underwater hydrophone network of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) was designed to listen for massive explosions, but its sonic sensors more often pick up the peaceful rumblings of the world’s largest animals. Now scientists are exploiting this unique data set to estimate fin whale population sizes and movements, which could improve the species’ uncertain conservation prospects....

When Hilary Mass was eight years old, her family added a new member who would change her life forever. Her little brother was born with special needs, and as the oldest child Mass found herself in a new position. “I was always the helper,” she says, “so I always knew this was what I was going to do.” For the past 30 years she has worked with special-needs kids. As Mass spent time with her charges, she noticed something that she thought could be better: many children with special needs have what specialists call sensory diets—activity plans that ensure their unique sensory needs are met....

As Earth heats up from the burning of fossil fuels, the climate conditions that species have adapted to are increasingly shifting away from their historical ranges. But while birds and other animals can often fly, walk or swim to follow their preferred environment, plants are quite literally rooted to the ground. They require outside forces to help them colonize new areas: half of all plant species rely on animals to deposit their seeds elsewhere, such as by eating fruits and then defecating the seeds they contain....

The pope’s unusual endorsement of the nation’s climate rules yesterday handed President Obama the rarest kind of support for a program being targeted by Republicans running for the highest office. Yet some scholars warned against exploiting the pontiff’s message for political appeal. Pope Francis said it’s “encouraging” that Obama is addressing “air pollution.” It was widely interpreted as a reference to the Clean Power Plan, which seeks to cut electricity emissions 32 percent over the next 15 years....

MIND AND PERCEPTION “Constructing the World from Inside Out,” by neuroscientist György Buzsáki, is a fascinating and slightly troubling read. What the author explains exceptionally well for a nonscientist reader such as me is how various “outside-in” models of cognition fail in their basic methodological approach: these models have long assumed that the brain must work like a computer, with something akin to a central processor handling the duty of arranging sense data into coherent perceptions....

Snapshots of our brain in action reveal its form and function, from molecules and cells to the grand orchestration of complex systems. The multidisciplinary symposium What Do We Want to See in Brain Imaging? will highlight recent technological achievements as attendees explore the potential for neuroimaging to revolutionize our understanding of the mind. 12/3 & 12/4 - London http://edab.dana.org/brain-imaging_en.cfm On this day in 1955 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the stimulant methylphenidate—sold as Ritalin—for the treatment of ailments such as depression, chronic fatigue and narcolepsy....

As identity theft–and worry about it–burgeons around the world, online services are springing up to fight it. Their advanced tactics, collectively known as identity scoring, go beyond the usual credit monitoring to include online data mining, pattern recognition, even semantic analysis of information about a subscriber that appears on Web pages. The approach is enjoying increasing success in unveiling suspicious activity. Among the latest firms to join the battle is Garlik, a start-up in Richmond, England....

Key concepts Plastic Polymers Milk Casein Introduction Have you ever heard that plastic can be made out of milk? If this sounds far-fetched, you may be surprised to learn that from the early 1900s until about 1945, milk was commonly used to make many different plastic ornaments. This included buttons, decorative buckles, beads and other jewelry, fountain pens, the backings for hand-held mirrors, and fancy comb and brush sets. Milk plastic (usually called casein plastic) was even used to make jewelry for Queen Mary of England!...

When I was a teenager at the turn of the millennium, right around the time I became smitten with fossils, the Field Museum in Chicago dismantled its Brachiosaurus and installed a Tyrannosaurus rex. In essence, the institution was trading one dinosaur icon for another. Out went the plant-eating colossus, heavier than 10 elephants, its neck arcing gracefully far above the museum’s second-floor viewing gallery. In came the biggest, baddest predator of all time: a bus-sized brute with railroad-spike teeth that shattered the bones of its prey....

No equation is more famous than E = mc2, and few are simpler. Indeed, the immortal equation’s fame rests largely on that utter simplicity: the energy E of a system is equal to its mass m multiplied by c2, the speed of light squared. The equation’s message is that the mass of a system measures its energy content. Yet E = mc2 tells us something even more fundamental. If we think of c, the speed of light, as one light year per year, the conversion factor c2 equals 1....

You may know koko as a huge, happy, captive gorilla who uses some sign language. She is 44 years old now. She lives in California. She likes kittens. She even understands the birds and the bees and can help plan her parenthood—or at least that’s what a popular YouTube video would have us believe. In the video, Koko’s caretaker, Francine “Penny” Patterson, presents the gorilla, who is too old to give birth herself, with a notepad outlining four scenarios by which she could become a mother....

Lynne McLandsborough, a professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, explains this oft-observed kitchen conundrum. When an apple is cut (or bruised), oxygen is introduced into the injured plant tissue. When oxygen is present in cells, polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzymes in the chloroplasts rapidly oxidize phenolic compounds naturally present in the apple tissues to o-quinones, colorless precursors to brown-colored secondary products. O-quinones then produce the well documented brown color by reacting to form compounds with amino acids or proteins, or they self-assemble to make polymers....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Halloween is a time to embrace all that is disgusting, from bloody slasher films to haunted houses full of fake guts and gore. But the attraction to stuff that grosses us out goes beyond this annual holiday. Flip through TV channels and you’ll come across “adventurous eating” programs, in which hosts and contestants are served all manner of stomach-clenching foods; reality shows that take a deep dive into the work of pimple-popping dermatologists; and gross-out comedies that deploy tasteless humor—think vomiting and urination—to make viewers laugh....

When a star explodes at the end of its lifetime, it smears the elements forged in its heart across vast stretches of space. The results, dramatic designs of gas and dust known as supernova remnants, contain structures that have long puzzled researchers. But supernovae occur in the Milky Way only once or twice a century, often without warning, making it difficult to study their initial moments. Researchers have modeled these events through simulations, but computing limitations require them to make assumptions about the finer details....