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Optogenetics is probably the biggest buzzword in neuroscience today. It refers to techniques that use genetic modification of cells so they can be manipulated with light. The net result is a switch that can turn brain cells off and on like a bedside lamp. The technique has enabled neuroscientists to achieve previously unimagined feats and two of its inventors—Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Ed Boyden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology—received a Breakthrough Prize in the life sciences on November 8 in recognition of their efforts....

The English language offers some entertaining euphemisms, and one I’ve always found amusing is used by parents like me, who will say they need to talk to the kids about the “birds and the bees.” Science, as usual, adds a new perspective: fishes were around a long time before the birds and bees got busy. Now recently discovered fossils show that internal fertilization arrived millions of years before previously thought and in a more primitive species of fish than expected....

Aged chimpanzees develop brain characteristics that are similar — but not identical — to those seen in early Alzheimer’s disease in humans, researchers report on August 1 in Neurobiology of Aging1. The findings from humanity’s closest relatives could help researchers to understand why people develop dementia, as well as suggest that caretakers of aging, captive chimpanzees watch them closely for behavioural changes. Although most animals’ cognitive abilities decline late in life, only people seem to develop Alzheimer’s disease, which can result in severe dementia symptoms....

Something weird is happening on the dwarf planet Ceres, which at 950 kilometers wide is the largest object in the Asteroid Belt. Since its arrival in Ceres’s vicinity earlier this spring, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has glimpsed mysterious, highly reflective bright spots dotting the surface. No one yet knows what exactly they are or how they got there. Periodically snapping pictures as it gradually spirals down to a low-altitude “survey” orbit, Dawn has provided a slow-motion zoom-in on the dwarf planet, allowing imaginations to run wild as experts and laypeople alike seek to discern structures and patterns in the low-resolution images....

Many sunscreens wear off over the course of a day, but a DNA material developed by US scientists gets better at absorbing ultraviolet (UV) light the longer it is exposed to it.1The transparent coating could protect skin – particularly damaged areas – from sunburn over long periods of time. ‘UV light is particularly bad for wounds because the skin is already weakened,’ explains Clara Piccirillo a materials chemist from the Portuguese Catholic University, who previously developed a fishbone-derived sunscreen but wasn’t involved in this study....

Nearly half of the world’s pastureland is experiencing notable changes in precipitation, driving up the risk to grazing and herding communities around the world, according to data collected by a team of U.S., Australian and Brazilian scholars. The research, led by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and published in the journal Nature Climate Change, relied on climate data from 1901 to 2014 to create global maps of precipitation variability trends across the world’s primary grazing regions....

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Lombok and the adjacent Gili Islands this week, and was felt on the nearby tourist island of Bali. Leaving more than 300 dead and around 84,000 others displaced, the event is yet another chapter in the age-old seismic story of humans trying to cope with an unpredictably rattling planet. But even though quakes have always been with us, something about them tends to leave us stunned and caught off guard....

A compound found in fruit could be the safe insect repellent of the future, according to a group of scientists from the University of California, Riverside in the US. Insects annually destroy huge amounts of agricultural produce. Finding safe and effective repellents is, therefore, a top priority for agrichemical producers. In recent years interest has grown in examining plants’ defences against pests, with one group, for instance, recently investigating how a plant’s chemical distress signal can be converted into a weapon to combat insects....

In thousands of fields across Nigeria rows of gold-yellow corn kernels are stippled with mold. The fungus is often invisible to the human eye, but even when its tendrils are visible as a greenish-black growth it is not considered a nuisance. Instead, many farmers are pleased to learn it has taken up residence because it shields their crops against a substance that threatens human health. For the past few years a growing cadre of farmers in west Africa have been deliberately infecting their corn with a specific strain of the mold Aspergillus flavus as a means of fending off another strain of the fungus....

It doesn’t look like Motorola and its parent company, Google, got the memo that there is supposed to be a lull in device introductions during the summer. This week Motorola introduced not one, but three new smartphones, exclusive to Verizon Wireless. And Google, which now owns Motorola, took the wraps off the latest version of its Android software, plus two new devices: the updated Nexus 7 tablet and the new Chromecast streaming media device for TVs....

The fastest marathon ever run on record was by Dennis Kimetto of Kenya in the 2014 Berlin marathon for a time of two hours, two minutes and 57 seconds. That means he ran an average pace of four minutes 41.4 seconds per mile over the entire 26.2-mile course. Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge and Ethiopian runner Guye Adola came very close to breaking this record at the Berlin marathon earlier this year....

One of the first orders of business for newly sworn-in President Barack Obama will be to push through a gigantic stimulus package to revive the U.S. economy from its coma. Debate swirls around how to spend that money; we would like to offer support for certain uses that seem both economically and scientifically worthy. Obama has repeatedly emphasized, both on the campaign trail and in his postelection “fireside chats” on YouTube, that his economic recovery plan will steer massive funding toward America’s decaying and outmoded infrastructure....

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — Dewayne Schaaf is at the top of the courthouse steps with his two children on a perfect spring night, looking down the hill to the riverfront where almost 46 feet of water is pressing up against the flood wall that keeps the Mississippi River from pouring into the historic downtown. “This has happened twice, gosh, in what, the last 15, 16 months?” Schaaf said. “The more walls that are going up, and the man-made condensing of the water, the channelization, I’m not saying it’s not climate change, but I think this is the biggest reason why we’re seeing it here....

In the first-ever global survey of indoor fungi scientists report that geography rather than building design and function has the greatest effect on the fungal species likely to be found indoors. The study suggests that the types of mold and other fungi most likely to be found in a dwelling may be largely unaffected by features like HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) filters and weather stripping. The results of the study were published online June 28 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

A newfound asteroid gave Earth a close shave early today, zipping between our planet and the moon just two days after astronomers first spotted it. The near-Earth asteroid 2012 XE54, which was discovered Sunday (Dec. 9), came within 140,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) of our planet at about 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) Tuesday (Dec. 11), researchers said. For comparison, the moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 240,000 miles or so (386,000 km)....

Some spices contain ingredients you won’t find in any recipes. The Food and Drug Administration recently found that spices entering the U.S. are nearly twice as likely as the average FDA-regulated foodstuff to contain Salmonella pathogens or unacceptable amounts of filth. Roughly 12 percent of spice imports, which make up the bulk of the U.S. supply, exceeded federal limits on the “maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects,” such as insect body parts and animal hair....

It is common knowledge: As women get older, pregnancy becomes a riskier enterprise. Advanced maternal age is linked to a number of developmental disorders in children, such as Down’s syndrome. Now, a study has confirmed that older mothers are more likely to give birth to a child with autism, too. The authors of the epidemiological study, published February 8 in Autism Research, examined the parental age of more than 12,000 children with autism and nearly five million “control” children between 1990 and 1999, all living in California....

If you recognize that question, you probably know this scenario: you’re sitting in a health care facility and, after telling your clinician about a pain in your back (or somewhere), they ask: how bad is it? As a pain physician, I always feel that the pain score (as it’s called) is a strange ritual. For one thing, a patient telling me they have “seven out of 10” gives me little to work with because while “seven” is a number, it isn’t an objective, replicable measure of pain....

Everyone knows someone with a good memory. But what does that really mean? Does the person have a photographic memory, or just better-than-average recollection of names and dates? Recently, neuroscientists have started to characterize what a super memory really means, in some cases. An article in the February issue of Scientific American—“The Discovery of Super Memories”—describes the research that went into the discovery of what is now called Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)....

A massive climate bill has taken its first step forward in the House, its path paved by the giveaway of allowances – free greenhouse gas emission permits designed to mute the economic impact of a carbon cap-and-trade program. Free allowances – each conveying the right to pump a ton of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – were the glue that held the sprawling bill together for Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass....