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EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler used an overseas gathering of environment ministers this week to hint that the United States might overhaul the way it uses climate data and modeling. Five days after his assertion was included in an official document from the Group of Seven meeting in Metz, France, it remains unclear if Wheeler revealed a potential policy to reexamine climate modeling. It’s become common for the United States to have its own climate and energy paragraph in multilateral statements, and on Monday, Wheeler broke away from the six other nations on issues like the Paris Agreement, providing support for poor and climate-affected countries, and overseas investments in fossil fuels....

More than 30 years ago a team of scientists painstakingly traced the connections among each of the 302 nerve cells in the hermaphrodite Caenorhabditis elegans worm. But it took until now for someone to get around to doing the same for the male. A new map, published in Nature, represents the first such complete wiring diagram for both sexes of an animal. The so-called connectome shows which neurons are linked to others, along with the muscles and other functions they control, and how strong those connections are....

More than a billion people around the world have smartphones, almost all of which come with some kind of navigation app such as Google or Apple Maps or Waze. This raises the age-old question we encounter with any technology: What skills are we losing? But also, crucially: What capabilities are we gaining? Talking with people who are good at finding their way around or adept at using paper maps, I often hear a lot of frustration with digital maps....

Sustainability is a very hot topic in the food and nutrition world these days and for good reason. Every year, we have about 80 million more people to feed than we did the year before. But of course, the amount of land and water we have to grow food—on this planet anyway—is fixed. In order to meet the ever-increasing demand for food, we’re going to need to make the best possible use of our finite natural resources....

The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting brings a wealth of scientific minds to the shores of Germany’s Lake Constance. Every summer at Lindau, dozens of Nobel Prize winners exchange ideas with hundreds of young researchers from around the world. Whereas the Nobelists are the marquee names, the younger contingent is an accomplished group in its own right. In advance of this year’s meeting, which focuses on physics, we are profiling several promising attendees under the age of 30....

A fluorinated analogue of the naturally occurring aminoglycoside neomycin – well known as an over-the-counter ointment for minor skin abrasions – could lead to a range of much-needed antibiotics in the arms race against aminoglycoside resistant bacteria. Aminoglycosides have proven indispensable in the treatment of hospital acquired bacterial infections that are particularly difficult to fight in patients suffering from cystic fibrosis and immunodeficiency related illnesses. By binding tightly to a bacterium’s ribosomal RNA (rRNA) in a position known as the A-site, the aminoglycosides disrupt the biosynthesis of proteins necessary for growth, resulting in the bacterium’s death....

The American Cancer Society reports a drop in total cancer deaths from 2002 to 2003, the first decrease since nationwide record keeping began in 1930. Total cancer deaths for 2006 are expected to rise because of the growing and aging population. The death rate, however, will continue its fall, which began in 1991. Cancer deaths in 2002: 557,271 In 2003: 556,902 Expected cancer cases in 2006: 1,399,790 Deaths expected from: Lung cancer: 162,460 Colorectal cancer: 55,170 Breast cancer: 40,970 Prostate cancer: 27,350 Percent of all cancer deaths from these four types: 51 Odds of developing cancer by age 39: Men: 1 in 70 Women: 1 in 50 Between ages 40 and 59: Men: 1 in 12 Women: 1 in 11 Between ages 60 and 69: Men: 1 in 6 Women: 1 in 9 SOURCE: Cancer Facts & Figures 2006....

Think back to your elementary school music class. You absorbed commands from a baton-wielding conductor while deciphering inky notes on a page. You kept tempo with the rest of the band while your contorted fingers sped from key to key. There is no doubt that musical training is a challenge for the brain. And in the past decade an abundance of studies have found that this effort confers cognitive benefits on all who study music, from toddlers to retirees....

Originally posted on the Nature news blog Just in time for the World Cup final, researchers have succeeded in building the first ‘buckyballs’ made entirely from boron atoms. Unlike true, carbon-based buckyballs, the boron molecules are not shaped exactly like soccer balls. But this novel form of boron might lead to new nanomaterials and could find uses in hydrogen storage. Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley found the first buckyball — or buckminsterfullerene — in 1985....

How do cicadas make such loud noises? Many of us were asking this question over the past weeks in the cacophonous buzz of cicadas that emerged by the millions in May and June in Maryland, Virginia and other states. What most people don’t realize, however, is that in asking this question we are following in the footsteps of one of the greatest scientists of all time. The scientist was Galileo Galilei, and his question about cicada sounds played a key role in his dealings with the Catholic Church—especially in his attempts to win the good graces of the Pope....

One way to obliterate an atom is to shoot it with the planet’s most powerful X-ray gun. Linda Young tried that experiment in October 2009, when she was testing the newly opened X-ray free-electron laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. A single pulse from the US$420-million machine packs the same energy as all the solar radiation hitting Earth at that moment, but focused down to one square centimeter....

An abundance of social science research indicates that high economic inequality comes along with several undesirable outcomes, such as higher levels of violence and lower levels of health, happiness and satisfaction with life. But inequality has been rising in almost all developed countries since the 1970s, which raises an important question. If high inequality is detrimental to the well-being of a large majority of the populace and if democracy is about realizing “the will of the people,” why has inequality been allowed to increase in most democracies?...

Dextromethorphan is a common cough suppressant used throughout the world. But, in September 2013, 11 children in Paraguay were admitted to the hospital shortly after receiving cough syrup for their cold symptoms. These children experienced severe breathing problems, hallucinations and seizures — and over the following weeks, dozens of other Paraguayan children were hospitalized with the same alarming drug reactions. As it transpired, the culprit was not dextromethorphan, but contamination by the drug’s mirror version....

President Biden is likely to issue more executive orders on global warming, said White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy in an interview with E&E News. The former EPA administrator was circumspect yesterday about when those orders might come or what they might entail. But she hinted that Biden isn’t done — even after he launched his presidency with a raft of climate-related orders and actions. “You might see a few here and there,” McCarthy said....

Physicists have used a quantum connection Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” to link 500,000 atoms together so that their fates were entwined. The atoms were connected via “entanglement,” which means an action performed on one atom will reverberate on any atom entangled with it, even if the particles are far apart. The huge cloud of entangled atoms is the first “macroscopic spin singlet,” a new state of matter that was predicted but never before realized....

As the potential effects of climate change are seen around the world - from starving polar bears to record-breaking storms - interest in climate science is soaring. Scientists are digging into the “how,” “why” and “what’s next” of global temperatures, melting ice, emission sources and sinks, changing weather patterns, and rising seas. The last year has seen major breakthroughs and advancements in climate research. Here are some of the biggest findings reported by scientists in 2017....

It pays to be a picky eater—at least, when it comes to meat. A study published Thursday in Scientific Reports suggests that certain plant-based diets can provide the same amount of nutrition as meat products and simultaneously protect the environment. While experts agree that meatless meals provide myriad benefits, going vegetarian is not a realistic option for many. Nor will it do much to slow down climate change. There is no question that the growth of livestock farming and meat consumption is far from environmentally friendly....

Cities around the world are getting hotter as the planet warms, and the consequences can be deadly. Researchers have linked heat waves like the one that hit Russia in 2010—killing 55,000 people—to climate change. And even without global warming, cities tend to bake when the weather gets warm. Surfaces such as asphalt roads and concrete buildings absorb and then radiate a lot of solar energy, which can leave urban areas 6 to 8 degrees Celsius warmer than rural regions....

Like all pandemics, it started out small. A novel coronavirus emerged in Brazil, jumping from bats to pigs to farmers before making its way to a big city with an international airport. From there, infected travellers carried it to the United States, Portugal and China. Within 18 months, the coronavirus had spread around the world, 65 million people were dead and the global economy was in free fall. This fictitious scenario, dubbed Event 201, played out in a New York City conference centre before a panel of academics, government officials and business leaders last October....

Editor’s Note: Click here for the web animations mentioned in the article How did space and time come about? How did they form the smooth four-dimensional emptiness that serves as a backdrop for our physical world? What do they look like at the very tiniest distances? Questions such as these lie at the outer boundary of modern science and are driving the search for a theory of quantum gravity—the long-sought unification of Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum theory....