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Astronomers spotted a peculiar burst of bright X-rays in a distant area of the universe, and they’re not quite sure where it came from. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected the outburst, called CDF-S XT1, in a region known as the Chandra Deep Field South in October 2014. Images from the telescope showed that the flash of X-rays became 1,000 times brighter over a few hours before fading dramatically in about a day, according to a statement from the Chandra X-ray Observatory....

As night was falling across the Americas on Sunday, August 28, 1859, the phantom shapes of the auroras could already be seen overhead. From Maine to the tip of Florida, vivid curtains of light took the skies. Startled Cubans saw the auroras directly overhead; ships’ logs near the equator described crimson lights reaching halfway to the zenith. Many people thought their cities had caught fire. Scientific instruments around the world, patiently recording minute changes in Earth’s magnetism, suddenly shot off scale, and spurious electric currents surged into the world’s telegraph systems....

Humans and other mammals react to stressful situations through a series of well-orchestrated evolutionary adaptations. When faced with a predator looking for its next meal, or with worry of losing a job, our bodies release a cascade of stress hormones. Our heart rate spikes, breath quickens, muscles tense up and beads of sweat appear. This so-called “fight-or-flight” response served our ancestors well, but its continual activation in our modern-day lives comes with a cost....

A federal court ruling that holds the Army Corps of Engineers liable for some flood damage during Hurricane Harvey could lead to more claims against the agency as climate change intensifies storms and flooding. The decision Tuesday is the second time this year the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled against the Army Corps and in favor of plaintiffs whose property the agency flooded under its water management strategy. Both cases arose from the kind of major flood events that the government’s National Climate Assessment warned last year are becoming more common as global temperatures and carbon emissions increase....

The risk of coastal floods damaging or destroying low-income homes will triple over the next 30 years as rising tides and storm surges encroach on low-lying developed areas, according to new findings from the nonprofits Climate Central and National Housing Trust. By 2050, researchers say, more than 25,000 affordable housing units are expected to see coastal flooding at least once in a typical year — up from 7,700 just 20 years ago, with the largest number of at-risk housing units in three states: New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts....

Last week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) the science team of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission presented their first findings from the asteroid, Bennu. As expected, the spacecraft had uncovered evidence of liquid water in Bennu’s past. “The findings are really, really exciting for us,” said Dante Lauretta, the mission’s principal investigator, at a press conference revealing the early results. “We targeted Bennu precisely because we thought it had water-bearing minerals....

A drug commonly used to treat heroin addiction appears to ease the symptoms of fibromyalgia, a poorly understood but potentially debilitating condition that affects up to 12 million people in the U.S. (4 percent of the population), a small pilot study has found. “We have a medication that seems to have low side effects and seems to reduce pain and fatigue [in fibromyalgia patients],” says Jarred Younger, a pain researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine and co-author of the study appearing today in Pain Medicine....

PERU Scientists excavated the skeletons of more than 140 children and 200 baby llamas from part of Peru’s northern coast, in what they think may have been the world’s largest known child sacrifice. They believe the ritual slaughter took place 550 years ago in an attempt to combat rising sea temperatures and coastal flooding. THAILAND Thai lawmakers voted to pass an amendment that legalizes the medical use of marijuana and kratom, a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia that is traditionally consumed for its stimulant and painkiller properties....

“Small is beautiful” has for decades been a mantra for environmentalists committed to building ecologically sound communities, economies and agriculture. But does the phrase apply to nuclear power plants? Some experts think so. They say small reactors are the right fit in the global push for carbonless energy. What is a small nuclear plant? Measured against plants that kick out 1,000 megawatts or more and power a million homes, “right sized” reactors might supply a small city or large industrial facility....

Not that long ago, it seemed the glory days of NASA’s New Horizons mission were in the rearview mirror, left behind with its historic Pluto encounter in 2015. Then, early last year, the spacecraft streaked by Arrokoth, a bit of flotsam drifting through the Kuiper Belt—the diffuse ring of primitive icy bodies beyond Neptune, of which Pluto is the largest member. What New Horizons found at Arrokoth—initially reported last year and now reinforced with 10 times more data in three studies published last week in Science—is a critical clue to the greatest cold case in the solar system: the mystery of how planets are born....

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told agency employees that he will not restrict climate science at the agency and will make investments in additional earth science research. Bridenstine spoke at a town hall meeting for NASA employees yesterday, where he was asked to clarify his previous comments denying human-caused climate change. Bridenstine acknowledged that humans play a significant role in global warming, using stronger language than he has in the past. “I don’t deny the consensus that the climate is changing, in fact I fully believe and know that the climate is changing....

When the largest Ebola outbreak in history exploded across West Africa in 2014, public health authorities raced to test experimental vaccines and drugs they hoped would quell the massive epidemic. But the trials process was too slow, and in the end, a massive influx of outside medical help and strict enforcement of measures to prevent ongoing infection were what brought the outbreak under control. Now, a new report commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine attempts to chart a road map for expedited clinical trials for future epidemics, hoping to ensure that the lessons from the devastating Ebola outbreak are not forgotten....

Big rigs and other medium- and heavy-duty trucks plying U.S. highways may become much more fuel efficient if new rules proposed on Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are finalized. The rules, submitted as part of the Obama administration’s Climate Action Plan, seek to increase the fuel efficiency of big rigs, cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 1 billion metric tons and reduce crude oil consumption by 1.8 billion barrels as a way to reduce the transportation sector’s impact on the climate....

By Geoff BrumfielSuspending a cat between life and death is one of the best-known thought experiments in quantum mechanics.Now researchers from Germany and Spain are proposing a real experiment to probe whether a virus can exist in a superposition of two quantum states. Such superpositions are typically the domain of smaller, inanimate objects such as atoms. But the team believes that their technique, using finely tuned lasers, will soon allow for the superposition of something much closer to a living organism....

Upon discovering the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth, the first question we are most likely to ask is “How can we communicate?” As we approach the 50th anniversary of the 1974 Arecibo message—humanity’s first attempt to send out a missive capable of being understood by extraterrestrial intelligence—the question feels more urgent than ever. Advances in remote sensing technologies have revealed that the vast majority of stars in our galaxy host planets and that many of these exoplanets appear capable of hosting liquid water on their surface—a prerequisite for life as we know it....

The Sea of Tranquility remains tranquil today, but it may not always be so. The site, where Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon 45 years ago this Sunday, has apparently been undisturbed since then. But a growing number of countries, including China and India, are planning moon missions, and new commercial space players may make lunar landings well. Some historians and archaeologists want the areas protected from visitors, both human and robotic, but there is no legal framework for safeguarding anything on the moon....

BERKELEY, Calif. –A storm has dropped a big snow on Lake Tahoe resorts, and there’s a flurry of activity at the California Ski Company as hordes of skiers and snowboarders prepare to hit the slopes. In a cluttered workroom at the back of the shop, technician Bobby Panighetti is getting a pair of skis ready to make their first tracks – infusing the bottoms with a coat of hot wax. This essential ritual is being performed at winter sports centers around the world as the ski season gets underway....

Long before COVID-19, scientists had been working to identify animal viruses that could potentially jump to people. These efforts have led to a Web-based platform called SpillOver, which ranks the risk that various viruses will make the leap. Developers hope the new tool will help public health experts and policymakers avoid future outbreaks. Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist and disease ecologist at the University of California, Davis, has led this work for more than a decade....

“Is data objective or subjective?” In my last year at Rice University, I enrolled in a data science ethics course. It was my first engineering course focused on the societal impacts of emerging technologies. Until this point, my work in social justice was largely separate from my technical work as a student of materials science and engineering. So, when my professor posted that question about data, I thought, this was what I signed up for!...

If people told you that they wanted to have a perfectly good leg amputated, or that they have three arms, when they clearly do not, you would probably think that they are mentally disturbed. Psychiatrists, too, long considered such conditions to be psychological in origin. Voluntary amputation, for example, was regarded as a fetish, perhaps arising because an amputee’s stump resembles a phallus, whereas imaginary extra limbs were likely to be dismissed as the products of delusions or hallucinations....