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Children whose fathers are highly intelligent are at a 31 percent higher risk of autism than those whose fathers are of average intelligence, according to unpublished results presented today at the 2017 International Meeting for Autism Research in San Francisco, California. The work supports observations that date back to the 1940s, when Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger noted in separate reports that the fathers of children with autism tended to be highly intelligent and in several cases worked in technical fields....

Excerpt from The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered, by Daniel B. Botkin. Oxford University Press, 2012. Copyright © 2012. Reprinted with permission. “Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” —Physicist Richard Feynman in the final report on the Challenger disaster Life has had to deal with environmental change, especially climate change, since the beginning of its existence on Earth. Species adjust or go extinct, and both have happened....

MEXICO A Mexico City–based social enterprise is providing computer programming training to teenagers deported from the U.S. The organization, Hola, is offering five-month software engineering “boot camps” in a bid to give the young deportees employable skills and ultimately boost the nation’s technology sector. U.S. A first-of-its-kind lawsuit claiming that the federal government’s actions caused climate change is moving forward. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an attempt by the Trump administration to halt the lawsuit, filed by young plaintiffs in Oregon....

A study published in the April issue of Biological Conservation offers hope. Scientists at the San Diego Zoo, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Peru’s National Forest and Wildlife Service found that in some lightly logged forests in Guatemala and Peru—certified by independent experts as “well managed”—jaguar densities were comparable to those in protected areas or other high-quality habitats. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that such forests can serve as important habitat corridors for the wide-ranging felines....

Singapore regulators in December approved in vitro cultured chicken, giving the world’s lab-developed meat industry its official commercial start. The company behind the poultry product, Eat Just, has since sold hundreds of servings of the poultry to 1880, a club in Singapore, and plans to expand to other restaurants on the island nation this year. The Singapore Food Agency’s decision marks the world’s first commercial approval of cultured, or cell-based, meat....

For many hours a day they pluck dirt, debris and bugs from each other’s fur. Between grooming sessions they travel in troops to search for food. When ignored by mom, they throw tantrums; when not ignored by zoo-goers, they throw feces. Through these behaviors, monkeys demonstrate they understand the meaning of social interactions with other monkeys. They recognize when their peers are grooming one another and infer social rank from seeing such actions within their group....

Dear EarthTalk: In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama called for a million electric vehicles on American roads by 2015. How likely is it that we’ll attain that goal?—Jerry Mitlitski, Salem, Ore. “We can break our dependence on oil…and become the first country to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” President Obama said in his January 2011 State of the Union address. “The future is ours to win....

Chances are that you have a smartphone, a Facebook page and a Twitter account and that you have found yourself ignoring a friend or family member who is in the same room as you because you are totally engrossed in your social technology. That technology means never having to feel alone or bored. Yet ironically, it can make us less attentive to the people closest to us and even make it hard for us to simply be with ourselves....

Edited by Dava Sobel The body quantified: at autopsy, it’s always on its back, looks up at me lips puckered tight, as if it would refuse one last kiss. How much the liver weighs, how heavy is the heart, how large the brain. The body, hungerless, all that remains, reminds us we are objects absent souls. I try to animate them, nights alone, when human company seems necessary, the lab surrounding us imaginary as Frankenstein’s—any thing’s possible....

SHANGHAI, China—The death toll from a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked western China yesterday rose to nearly 12,000 and scores more were feared dead as rescuers continued to sift through the rubble of flattened schools and homes in search of thousands still missing, according to Xinhua news agency reports from the local government. Wang Zhengyao, disaster relief division director at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said that 11,921 people had died so far in the country’s worst earthquake in three decades....

By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazineBloodsucking leeches are offering the best hope of finding one of the world’s rarest animals. The saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) was first described from skulls found in a Vietnamese forest reserve, but the elusive antelope has rarely been seen alive. Little is known about its range or population, which probably numbers in the low hundreds.Conservationists are now planning to trawl tropical leeches for saola DNA. Prompted by research published this week showing that the bloodsuckers can store DNA from their meals for several months, the saola search is at the vanguard of an approach to gauging biodiversity that could prove much more efficient than conventional methods....

As prices drop, consumers are increasingly buying digital projectors to cast big images in company conference rooms, home living rooms and backyard “drive-ins.” Two technologies—micromirrors and liquid-crystal displays (LCDs)—have been vying for these markets, but they are doing equally well in today’s home and business arenas, says Art Feierman, editor of ProjectorReviews.com. Both varieties can project sharp images from DVDs, digital cameras and presentation software such as PowerPoint. The choice depends on what buyers value most....

If you’re out and about on a sweltering day, it probably won’t be long before you start to feel tired and sluggish. But why does being out in the heat bring on feelings of drowsiness? The reason for this lethargy is simple: Your body is working hard to keep you cool, and this extra labor makes you feel tired, said Dr. Michele Casey, the regional medical director at Duke Health in North Carolina....

Dear EarthTalk: What is the “clean tech” business sector and why have I been hearing that term so much lately? – Andrea Newell, Denver, CO Cleantech is a loosely defined category of businesses dedicated to creating cutting edge technologies that address the world’s environmental problems. These high flying companies—most of which began small with the hope of ascending to publicly traded status—are the new darlings of Wall Street, attracting billions in venture capital and public funding in what many financial analysts are calling the next big thing since the burst of the dot-com bubble....

Early in his new book, physics historian Graham Farmelo quotes Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, N.J.: “We can eavesdrop on nature not only by paying attention to experiments but also by trying to understand how their results can be explained with the deepest mathematics. You could say that the universe speaks to us in numbers.” Relax, he doesn’t mean numerology. That quote provides the book’s title: The Universe Speaks in Numbers....

Though triskaidekaphobes—those who fear the number 13—recoil over today’s date (and a Friday the 13th at that), they can take solace knowing that there is only a very low probability that the sun will bombard Earth today like it did on March 13, 1989. Unless, that is, this writing jinxes it (speaking of superstition). Two decades ago, one of the most extreme examples of space weather in modern times wracked the planet....

What Made Us Unique by Kevin Laland The Ancient Roots of the Internal-Combustion Engine by Lewis Dartnell, José Miguel Mayo and Matthew Twombly Two Mental Abilities Separate Humans from Animals by Thomas Suddendorf Are Humans the Only Conscious Animal? by Susan Blackmore The Cultural Origins of Language by Christine Kenneally What Makes the Human Brain Special by Chet C. Sherwood and Mesa Schumacher Why Is Homo Sapiens the Sole Surviving Member of the Human Family?...

With dementia, Alzheimer’s disease brings amyloid plaques—proteins that accumulate in the brain. Many scientists believe the plaques are responsible for gradually destroying memory and brain functions. Most research—and most attempts at early diagnosis and treatment—depends on that supposition being correct. But new imaging technologies, which can show plaque buildups in the brains of living subjects, have produced a paradox: some people with plaque remain cognitively intact. A small minority of researchers think this finding suggests a different culprit behind Alzheimer’s: oxidative stress....

Last winter, I banged my right elbow playing hockey, and it became swollen and red. Doctors diagnosed bursitis, inflammation of my elbow’s bursa sac, and prescribed antibiotics. In late May, I became feverish and delirious. I checked into the only hospital in my hometown: Hoboken University Medical Center. An emergency-room physician diagnosed sepsis based on blood and other tests. I spent three nights in the hospital, during which an orthopedic surgeon operated on my infected elbow....

Planet Earth looks beautiful from space. So beautiful that a photo of our world taken by Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell inspired then 21-year-old Josh Simpson to begin a lifelong project: creating his own universe of brilliantly colored glass planets, complete with oceans, continents, volcanoes and clouds. Since learning glassblowing at Goddard College, Simpson has made thousands of planets large and small, as well as tremendous glass platters that resemble the sun’s corona, or Saturn and its rings....