Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic—the saying is decades old, but scientists have only recently uncovered why it is often true. Long-term alcohol abuse changes the brain, making a person more sensitive to stress and more likely to reach for the bottle to soothe his or her anxiety. According to a March 14 study in the journal Science, drugs that inhibit these stress pathways could help recovering alcoholics stay in control....
One U.S. EPA climate change effort survived the Trump administration’s budget slaughter. Programs to track greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, factories, power plants and other sources will continue to receive funding, according to the fiscal 2018 budget proposal the White House released yesterday. If Congress approves Trump’s budget, the programs will be among the government’s last substantive federal climate initiatives. “Having the government pull that data together and do that in a consistent way is extremely important,” said Kevin Kennedy, deputy director for the U....
When a meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February, the world’s space agencies found out along with the rest of us, on Twitter and YouTube. That, says former astronaut Ed Lu, is unacceptable—and the United Nations agrees. Last week the General Assembly approved a set of measures that Lu and other astronauts have recommended to protect the planet from the dangers of rogue asteroids. The U.N. plans to set up an “International Asteroid Warning Group” for member nations to share information about potentially hazardous space rocks....
In a scene from the 2013 BBC documentary series Africa, a giraffe approaches from a distance, ambling across the golden sand of the Kalahari. “A young male,” narrator David Attenborough announces. The newcomer heads toward another giraffe, Western showdown music warbling on the soundtrack. “The old bull won’t tolerate a rival,” Attenborough warns, as the giraffes begin to clash. “Pushing and shoving, they size each other up. The young rival seems to think he has a chance and attacks....
When neuroscientist Jakob Seidlitz took his 15-month-old son to the paediatrician for a check-up last week, he left feeling unsatisfied. There wasn’t anything wrong with his son — the youngster seemed to be developing at a typical pace, according to the height and weight charts the physician used. What Seidlitz felt was missing was an equivalent metric to gauge how his son’s brain was growing. “It is shocking how little biological information doctors have about this critical organ,” says Seidlitz, who is based at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia....
With less than 90 days until COP26, the annual United Nations climate change conference being held in Glasgow, Scotland this November, pressure is high for nations to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The 2015 Paris Agreement called for commitments to hold warming to “well below” 2 degrees C and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. Since then, advances in climate science have found that the 2 degree C mark is insufficient to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, strengthening the need for an updated 1....
BOSTON—Evan Jones was excited when he signed up for a contemporary art class at community college. Then the professor announced the course would focus heavily on class participation. “That was the first class that I dropped,” he said. Jones’s persistent, severe anxiety has shadowed him for years. He’s struggled to pipe up in class and to make friends. His anxiety was so acute, he left high school; after getting his GED, he has bounced around, taking classes at three colleges over the past five years....
Earlier this month the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine following reports that, within two weeks of getting it, six women developed blot clots, and one of them died. About 6.8 million people had received that vaccine at that time. The day after it issued the recommendation, the agency convened a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to go over each case and determine how to proceed....
The sky is always changing. The planets move overhead as they trace their paths around the sun, and the moon rotates through the heavens as it circles our own world. Though the stars that provide their backdrop stay fixed in relation to one another, they too spin above as Earth makes its daily revolution and its yearly passage around the sun. To appreciate this ever-changing view, grab these sky maps, go outside at night, and look up!...
Drive nearly 500 kilometers at night on winter roads through Canada’s Rocky Mountains? Not a problem, says Paul Zizka. He will drop anything at anytime and head out the door of his home in Banff, Alberta, to go hunting—and don’t expect him back before 5 A.M. What is his quarry? The aurora borealis, or northern lights: one of the most magnificent natural phenomena imaginable. “If you’ve seen the aurora,” he says, “you know why....
Climate change can make storms stronger, cold spells longer and water supplies drier. But can it cause war? A new study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says drought in Syria, exacerbated to record levels by global warming, pushed social unrest in that nation across a line into an open uprising in 2011. The conflict has since become a major civil war with international involvement. Drying and drought in Syria from 2006 to 2011—the worst on record there—destroyed agriculture, causing many farm families to migrate to cities....
CLIMATEWIRE | Hurricane activity is shifting worldwide in large part because of climate change. Cyclones are getting stronger, intensifying faster, dumping more rain and migrating into different regions of the oceans. But global warming isn’t the only human activity at play. Air pollution also has a significant influence on hurricane formation, according to a new study. Over the past four decades, air pollution has declined in Europe and the United States with the adoption of stronger air quality regulations....
Manufacturers of heavy-duty diesel engines have slashed emissions from new engines by more than 90 percent for most pollutants, according to a study released yesterday. New pollution control technologies that were developed in response to U.S. EPA regulations have led to the steep declines in pollution, according to the study [pdf]. For several major pollutants, emissions were reduced even more steeply than federal law required. “The important message is to see how clean these diesel engines are,” said Joe Suchecki, a spokesman for the Engine Manufacturers Association....
The Claim Casual cannabis use harms young people’s brains. The Facts A study found differences in the brains of users and nonusers, but it did not establish that marijuana use caused the variations or that they had any functional significance. The Details Researchers at Northwestern University and Harvard Medical School conducted MRI scans of two groups of 20 young adults ages 18 to 25. One group reported using marijuana at least once a week, smoking 11 joints a week on average, whereas the other had used it less than five times total and not at all during the last year....
Volunteers sometimes spend months trudging through remote terrain to search for lost hikers or crime victims. But a new tool could soon pinpoint forensic evidence from the sky instead. By identifying how traces of blood and other human signs reflect light when found on various natural surfaces, the scientists say searchers will be able to quickly scour large areas for clues about missing persons—dead or alive—using images acquired by drones. Special drone-mounted sensors can record wavelength intensity for the entire electromagnetic spectrum (rather than just the red, green and blue of a typical camera) in each pixel of an image....
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone—Inside the bustling Ebola “Command Center” in Sierra Leone’s capital, it appears that the disease outbreak might finally be brought under control. Staff register alerts that stream in from a call center, and they dispatch surveillance officers located in each neighborhood, who decide whether an ambulance is warranted. However, a day spent with the surveillance officers—medical school students hired by the government for this response—reveals how messy the roundup can get in practice....
Ian Hogg and Byron Adams peered out the windows of their helicopter as it glided over the rocky slopes of the Transantarctic Mountains, dry peaks that rise above vast ice sheets just 600 kilometers from the South Pole. Their eyes flitted across the ledges and cliffs below. It was a sunny day in January 2018, and they were searching for landmarks that matched those described in some brief notes left by a deceased entomologist who, back in 1964, had discovered an enigmatic creature in this desolate landscape....
We often regard mathematics with a cold reverence. The discipline is driven by rules and principles that are eternal and stoic. There will never be a finite number of primes, for instance, and the digits of pi will go on forever.* Beneath that certainty, however, lies a sublime attractiveness. A proof or equation can have an elegant, aesthetic effect. Mathematicians who study group theory, for example, analyze rules governing rotations or reflections....
Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac and other founding physicists may have used pencils to work out the details of relativity and quantum mechanics. Now their modern successors are employing pencil lead in a new way to prove those theories–and potentially point the way toward a whole new form of electronics. Pencil lead is actually graphite–a carbon mineral that, when dragged across paper, leaves writing behind because its atomic layers separate easily. This also means that it is an excellent conductor of electricity....
Named after the Roman King of the underworld, Pluto has served as a surprising source of conflict in the astronomical community and for lovers of space everywhere. Growing up, I was taught in school that our Sun hosted nine planets. And as a professional astronomer, I went on to teach this nine-planet solar system model in elementary and middle schools around the globe. But in a contentious decision in 2006, Pluto was officially stripped of its planetary status leaving our solar system with only eight planets and making me a liar to school children....
