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Researchers say they have found a way to pluck out a potent type of stem cell from the testes of adult mice and transform it into other kinds of tissue, including heart muscle and blood vessels. The result—the second such finding in the past year—suggests that similar cells from human testicles might have similar powers, paving the way to creating replacement tissue for men who have suffered damage from heart attacks or other injuries and avoiding some of the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells (ESC)....

As far back as 1879 we realized the impossibility of prediction: Some predictions were more…“concrete”: We can readily imagine a being, possessing sufficient knowledge and ability, to calculate the orbits of every person now living. Such a being must know all that is to be known in regard to our mental and physical organisms, and the circumstances under which we are and will he placed. Having thus the initial stage and being able to trace succeeding events as logical sequences of the present, such a being could predict exactly what each of us will decide to do, under the present and all succeeding circumstances–could predict how far we will be physically and mentally able to carry our resolutions into effect....

The ocean covers more than 70 percent of our planet, an area of over 160 million square miles. It is so immense that explorers once thought there was no way to cross it. When our ships were advanced enough to do so, naturalists then thought it impossible for humans to ever exhaust fisheries or drive marine species to extinction. They were wrong. Commercial fishing now covers an area four times that of agriculture, and much of that expanse has been rendered completely unsustainable....

When news journalists write headlines, they brainstorm the most succinct, compelling encapsulation—the takehome message—for their articles. This is much trickier than it sounds, as certain phrasings might misrepresent a story’s essence or omit important elements. In this collection, senior space editor Lee Billings does an in-depth analysis of what might be included in the decadal astronomy report, set to be released any moment by the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine....

FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT Al Gore urges us all to reduce our carbon footprint, yet he regularly flies in a private jet. Former drug czar William Bennett extols the importance of temperance but is reported to be a habitual gambler. Pastor Ted Haggard preached the virtues of “the clean life” until allegations of methamphetamine use and a taste for male prostitutes arose. Eliot Spitzer prosecuted prostitution rings as attorney general in New York State, but he was later found to be a regular client of one such ring....

Whether it’s in haze-shrouded cities, plumes of car exhaust or even clear skies, fine particle pollution can be found just about everywhere in the United States. These pollutants are so small they can slip inside buildings and penetrate deep into lung tissue. On hot summer days, high concentrations of the pollutant help trigger poor air quality alerts, warning the very young, elderly and sick to stay indoors. Exposure to fine particles is linked to premature death and higher risks of asthma and heart attacks....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. President Biden has proposed ambitious goals for curbing climate change and investing in a cleaner U.S. economy. One critical sector is transportation, which generates 28% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions – more than either electric power production or industry. Shifting from cars that run on gasoline and diesel to electric vehicles, or EVs, is a key strategy to address transportation’s contribution to global warming....

False information spreads much faster and farther than the truth on Twitter—and although it is tempting to blame automated “bot” programs for this, human users are more at fault. These are two conclusions researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology drew from their recent study of how news travels on the microblogging site. Their findings, published this week in Science, explain a lot about how conspiracy theories (as well as misleading and downright incorrect information) drown out hard, clear facts on social media....

For Yuri Milner, the Russian Internet entrepreneur and billionaire philanthropist who funds the world’s richest science prizes and searches for extraterrestrial intelligence, the sky is not the limit—and neither is the solar system. Flanked by physicist Stephen Hawking and other high-profile supporters today in New York, Milner announced his most ambitious investment yet: $100 million toward a research program to send robotic probes to nearby stars within a generation. “The human story is one of great leaps,” Milner said in a statement released shortly before the announcement....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Over the past year, the public discussion on election security and integrity has focused on concerns about foreign meddling in U.S. elections. The evidence is still coming in about which countries did what to influence both the public and the election itself. The American people have been left with a vague sense of disquiet—that something untoward was likely attempted, the results of which are unknown....

The Airbus helicopter bucked wildly in the frigid air hundreds of meters above the Chilean Andes. Every time it heeled over to turn, the helicopter dropped 20 meters, and the jagged peaks below seemed to rush up at Brad Singer through a gaping opening in the copter’s side—the door had been removed to make photography easier. The jolts and the clear path to the ground did not make Singer, a geologist usually based on the flat land around the University of Wisconsin–Madison, feel very secure even though he was strapped into a seat....

During his eight years as community alert and warning manager in Sonoma County, California, Sam Wallis has repeatedly watched wildfires roar through the cities and small towns he protects. Often with little warning, fires have razed homes and charred the area’s picturesque hillsides, valleys and vineyards just north of San Francisco. Wallis had to evacuate his own home last year. And in 2017 his property was strewn with wind-blown debris from the deadly, 37,000-acre Tubbs Fire, one of the most destructive in California’s history....

Apple’s new iPhone 5.(Credit:Apple)As expected, Apple has announced the iPhone 5.The object of much anticipation and speculation over the last several months, the iPhone 5 delivers most of what industry observers had expected. The smartphone is made of glass and aluminum and all of the buttons are in the same places. According to Apple, the device is 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S, measuring just 7.6mm. It’s also 20 percent lighter than its predecessor at 112 grams....

For vampire bats, the mark of true friendship is breaking bread—er, blood—together. These animals require their liquid meals to survive, and they require them often. If one misses a feeding just three nights in a row, it could starve to death. So the creatures have developed a friendly way to cope: sometimes well-fed bats regurgitate blood directly into the mouths of hungry companions. That blood may not be enough for a full meal, but it lets the recipient live and hunt another day....

When William Shakespeare took a breath, 280 molecules out of every million entering his lungs were carbon dioxide. Each time you draw breath today, 380 molecules per million are carbon dioxide. That portion climbs about two molecules every year. No one knows the exact consequences of this upsurge in the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration nor the effects that lie ahead as more and more of the gas enters the air in the coming decades–humankind is running an uncontrolled experiment on the world....

The items below are highlights from the free newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign-up here.. Please consider a monthly contribution to support this newsletter. At Nature, Nicky Phillips, David Cyranoski and Smriti Mallapaty covered the announcement that a collaboration between researchers at AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford is pausing Phase 3 vaccine-candidate experiments due to a “suspected adverse event” in a study participant in the UK (9/9/20)....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The day when cars can talk to each other—and to traffic lights, stop signs, guardrails and even pavement markings—is rapidly approaching. Driven by the promise of reducing traffic congestion and avoiding crashes, these systems are already rolling out on roads around the U.S. For instance, the Intelligent Traffic Signal System, developed with support from the U....

By Environment Correspondent Alister DoyleOSLO (Reuters) - China and other emerging economies have overtaken Western nations in dumping old electronic goods, from TVs to cellphones, and will lead a projected 33 percent surge in the amount of waste from 2012 to 2017, a U.N.-backed alliance said on Sunday.The report, the first to map electronic waste by country to promote recycling and safer disposal of often toxic parts, shows how the economic rise of developing nations is transforming the world economy even in terms of pollution....

Gene therapy has come a long way since its first human proof-of-concept trials in the 1990s. The approach—which involves fixing or replacing a disease-causing gene or changing its activity—has recorded some remarkable successes and some devastating missteps. In the past decade those extreme ups and downs have leveled off, and now gene therapy, in a variety of forms, has begun advancing at a rapid pace. This special report explores how the field has moved beyond its early failures and grown to encompass an ever expanding vision of what genomic medicine is and what it can accomplish....

Dozens of exceptionally active volcanic sites dot the earth. But geologists have debated the cause of these so-called hotspots for decades. Do they originate in mantle plumes—vast upwellings of superhot rock from the earth’s core— or in shallower reservoirs of heat in the upper mantle? Seismologists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recently took an unprecedented look at what lies below the earth’s surface to depths of thousands of kilometers....