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The dwarf planet Ceres is a complex and active world unlike any other place in the solar system, new research suggests. Observations by NASA’s Ceres-orbiting Dawn spacecraft indicate that “ice volcanos” have erupted on the dwarf planet in the recent past and that Ceres’ crust is an odd ice-rock mixture that has never been observed before, scientists reported in a series of six new studies published online today (Sept. 1) in the journal Science....

The last resting place of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) comet lander Philae has been confirmed, less than a month before the end of the mission that saw it travel billions of kilometres from Earth. Photographs taken by Philae’s mother ship Rosetta on 2 September clearly show the lander, including two of its three legs. The pictures, released on 5 September, confirm that Philae lies on its side in the shadow of a cliff, lodged in a crack, with one of its legs in the air....

There’s a limit to how fast information can move through the universe, just like there’s a limit to how fast everything else can move through the universe. It’s a rule. But a team of quantum physicists, like quantum physicists often do, has figured out how to bend it. Under normal circumstances, the ultimate limit on information transfer—the bandwidth of the universe—is one bit per fundamental particle, moving no faster than the speed of light....

In 2004 scientists created mice that transformed unhealthy omega-6 fatty acids into beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. They did this by transplanting a gene from the roundworm C. elegans into mice, thus raising the possibility of genetically engineering livestock with higher levels of the good fat. Now a team of researchers has realized that vision, creating several healthy pigs with meat rich in omega-3s. Yifan Dai of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues first transferred the roundworm gene–fat-1–to pig fetal cells....

Humans and chimpanzees have in common more than 98 percent of DNA and 99 percent of genes. Yet, in looks and behavior we are very different from them. For more than 30 years–well before either the human or chimpanzee genome had been sequenced–scientists have speculated that this might be due to the way that the common genes express themselves rather than differences in the genes themselves. A new comparison published in Nature seems to prove that theory....

Telecommunications company T-Mobile confirmed last month that hackers gained access to 54 million users’ personal data, including names, addresses, dates of birth and—perhaps worst of all—social security numbers. The latter are a big score for identity thieves because they can be used to unlock financial services, government benefits and private medical information. This is only the latest major data breach to expose such identifying information on a massive scale, rendering hundreds of millions of Americans more vulnerable to identity theft....

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Equal to Anything!” from the new book Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), by Kitty Ferguson. When Stephen Hawking was twelve years old, two of his schoolmates made a bet about his future. John McClenahan bet that Stephen “would never come to anything”; Basil King, that he would “turn out to be unusually capable.” The stake was a bag of candy....

LIFE LESSONS The Human Spark www.pbs.org/humanspark Watching Alan Alda host The Human Spark, you get the sense that he could teach basket weaving and make it entertaining and relevant. This program, however, aims for a much headier topic—the question of what makes human beings so unique. What is it about our brain that allowed us to take over the world? The three-part series investigates how our ancestors differed from Neandertals and from our closest relatives today, the chimpanzees....

In the 2001 suspense thriller Memento, the lead character, Lenny, suffers a brain injury that makes him unable to remember events for longer than a minute or so. This type of amnesia, known as anterograde amnesia, is well known to neurologists and neuropsychologists. Like Lenny, sufferers remember events from their life histories that occurred before their injuries, but they cannot form lasting memories of anything that occurs afterward. As far as they recall, their personal histories ended shortly before the onset of their disorders....

By James Harding Giahyue MONROVIA (Reuters) - Medical charities say they have started trials of untested drug treatments on Ebola patients in Liberia and Guinea for the first time in an effort to control an epidemic that has killed more than 8,000 people in the region. The World Health Organization gave its approval for the use of experimental drugs on West African Ebola patients in August, but it has taken months to organize trials and get limited supplies of the drugs to the affected countries....

Facing strong employee resistance and turnover, Google recently backtracked from its plan to force all employees to return back to the office and allowed many to work remotely. Apple’s plan to force its staff back to the office has caused many to leave Apple and led to substantial internal opposition. Why are these and so many other companies forcing employees to return to the office? They must know about the extensive, in-depth research surveys from early spring 2021 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) that asked thousands of employees about their preferences on ending remote work....

As climate change affects the ecology of the Pacific Ocean, many marine species will suffer, while two new reports indicate that certain fish and whales may successfully adapt. In one study, scientists found that gray whales in the Pacific are capable of feeding at both seafloor and surface levels, which has allowed them to survive fluctuations in food supply during a series of glacial periods. Researchers identified the unique feeding pattern by studying food availability and the whales’ population over the past 120,000 years....

Two years ago, at the recommendation of a nutritionist, I stopped eating wheat and a few other grains. Within a matter of days the disabling headaches and fatigue that I had been suffering for months vanished. Initially my gastroenterologist interpreted this resolution of my symptoms as a sign that I perhaps suffered from celiac disease, a peculiar disorder in which the immune system attacks a bundle of proteins found in wheat, barley and rye that are collectively referred to as gluten....

Apollo 8 flew barely a decade into the Space Age. It was a moment when public enthusiasm for human space exploration ran high—but also was poised to decline. And it was a time when space technology was starting to transform everyday life. “Apollo 8 was the high-water mark of public interest in human spaceflight,” says Howard McCurdy, author of Space and the American Imagination and a public affairs professor at American University in Washington, D....

As the Arctic warms up and the landscape thaws and shifts, scientists have zeroed in on a potentially potent source of greenhouse gases: lakes and other bodies of water. Thawing permafrost and increasing plant growth are both consequences of rising temperatures in the chilly Arctic—and both are full of carbon-rich organic materials. Researchers have suggested that more and more of this organic carbon may be winding up in the Arctic lakes that dot the landscape....

Dear EarthTalk: Radioactive rain recently fell in Massachusetts, likely due to Japan’s nuclear mess. Given the threats of radiation, wouldn’t it be madness now to continue with nuclear power? How can President Obama include nukes as part of a “clean energy” agenda?—Bill Mason, Hartford, Conn. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, countries around the world that were growing more bullish on nuclear power are now reconsidering their future energy investments....

On December 2, 2015, the centennial anniversary of the publication of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, science fans everywhere reflected on this amazing act of genius. But the theory was not born, fully formed, in some eureka moment. Albert Einstein chipped away at it for years. He was finally driven to complete it by a fierce (though collegial) rivalry with mathematician David Hilbert [see “How Einstein Reinvented Reality,” by Walter Isaacson; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, September 2015]....

Bioluminescent bays are among the rarest and most fragile of ecosystems. They form when large numbers of micro­organisms, often dinoflagellates such as Pyrodinium bahamense, congregate in a lagoon with an opening narrow enough to keep the organisms from escaping. The dinoflagellates feed on vitamin B12 produced by red mangrove trees and glow bluish-­green when disturbed by motion of any kind, although scientists have yet to fully understand the phenomenon. Because “bio bays” need very specific conditions to survive, there are only a handful worldwide, and most of the known ones are in the Caribbean....

When we think about taking nutrients into our bodies, we usually think about swallowing them, in the form of pills, powders, or that radical format known as food. For that matter, when we talk about nutrient absorption, we’re usually talking about the absorption of nutrients from the digestive system into the bloodstream. But a handful of companies are trying to change the way we think about nutritional supplementation. Instead of swallowing a handful of pills and worrying about whether or not they are being absorbed, why not bypass the digestive tract altogether and apply them directly to your skin?...

Cut Up Those Cards Forget about money burning a hole in your pocket: carrying cash rather than credit cards may help you spend less. Business researchers from New York University and the University of Maryland report that study subjects given cash to shop with spent less than those given credit. The team speculates that people are less willing to spend cash because it is the most “transparent” payment—it is easy to see how much you have spent....