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MUSEUMS/EXHIBITIONS Psychology: It’s More Than You Think! Created by the American Psychological Association, this interactive exhibit explores human behavior, emotions and social interactions, featuring hands-on activities designed to stimulate the imagination. Because its temporary home is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the exhibit also includes a historical look at both the psychology of inventors and gadgets invented by psychologists (such as the polygraph). National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum Akron, Ohio Through April 30 330-762-4463 www....

By Alla KatsnelsonA day after a high profile stem cell paper published earlier this year was retracted fromNature, editors of a second journal,Blood, have posted a “notice of concern” regarding a 2008 paper from the same lab. A comparison of the papers made byNature reporters has revealed two pairs of flow cytometry plots that seem to be duplicates.The retracted paper, which was cited 13 times, according to theWeb of Scienceonline citation index, describes a series of experiments - including stitching together the circulatory systems of old and young mice - to show that age-related changes in adult blood stem cells can be influenced and even reversed by their environment....

The wolf relatives of modern-day dogs began the evolutionary process of becoming humans’ best friends more than 10,000 years ago. But despite more than a century of research, scientists still do not know the full story of how and why dog domestication occurred in the first place. Now a new study published on Thursday in Scientific Reports reveals genetic changes that may have allowed ancient dogs to feel comfortable around humans by lowering the stress levels the animals experienced in our presence....

If the planet’s climate keeps warming at current rates, by the end of this century Atlantic hurricane rainfall will be 24 percent higher than today. Maximum winds will be 6 percent stronger and the storms will move 9 percent slower, creating significantly more damage. Those are the findings from an international team of experts who modeled 22 hurricanes that hit between 2002 and 2013 and would take a similar track under the warmer conditions....

June 1964 Supersonic Transport “In the years since the flight of the X-I, aeronautical engineers have almost continuously examined the practicability of commercial aircraft that would fly faster than the speed of sound. Such examinations have become more pertinent in recent years with the successful employment by airlines of high-speed subsonic jet transports. These studies reflect the traditional evolution of air transportation toward higher cruising speeds. Anyone who has considered this long-term trend has wondered if it would be finally halted at velocities approaching the speed of sound....

Minuscule pieces of plastic pollution were originally discovered floating on the sea surface decades ago. Now in the first study to systematically comb a section of ocean from top to bottom for these microplastics, researchers have found that deep water that is key marine animal habitat harbors significantly greater plastic pollutant loads than surface water does. Shockingly, more microplastic occurs in the depths of California’s relatively clean Monterey Bay than on the surface in the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch....

In downtown New York, mysterious deliveries of heavy equipment were arriving at the Devlin & Co. clothing store on Warren Street and Broadway. In the middle of the night, metal rods would periodically poke up through the roadbed from somewhere below. A grand and secret project was underway, which its mastermind thought would revolutionize urban life. Horse-drawn cart traffic was choking the city, which in 1869 housed nearly a million people....

No one except Gregory Kapothanasis knows exactly what upset him today. On this hot day in July, he went to his day program for adults with developmental disabilities, as he has done without incident five days a week for the past four years. But then things unraveled. According to the program’s report, he grabbed a staff member’s arm hard enough to bruise it. Then, on the bus during the daily outing, he started screaming and hitting his seat....

Much of what Stephen Shore knows about romance he learned in the self-help aisle of a bookstore near the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts. In college, Shore, who has autism, began to wonder if women spoke a language he didn’t understand. Maybe that would explain the perplexing behavior of a former massage student with whom he traded shiatsu sessions, who eventually told him she had been hoping for more than a back rub....

The state treasurer in Wisconsin declined to explain his views about climate change a day after leading the effort to ban a small state agency from talking about rising temperatures. The ban approved Tuesday sharply divided elected officials overseeing the obscure Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, prompting the only Democrat on the three-person panel to say it symbolizes “a very dangerous trend” in state politics. The restriction, approved by a 2-1 vote, prevents 10 staff members at the BCPL from communicating about climate change, including about its potential impacts on 77,000 acres of state timberland....

1971 Virus Control “To date the only clinically practical way to control virus diseases is to administer a vaccine that stimulates the body to form antibodies against that virus. Another possibility is to rely on what is apparently the cell’s own first line of defense: interferon. Our group at the Merck Institute concentrated on the active substance poly I:C. It shows considerable promise for exploiting the interferon mechanism. After some final tests to rule out the danger of autoimmune disorders, poly I:C will be ready for cautious trials in humans for preventing infections, such as the common cold, that are caused by viruses....

One day last December, John Walker Moosbrugger, a 25-year-old project manager for the lunar robotics start-up Astrobotic, sat in front of the company’s clean room and watched as an instrument older than him was attached to a moon lander. The vehicle, called Peregrine, was a four-legged, foil-wrapped canister as big as a hot tub. The instrument—Surface and Exosphere Alterations by Landers, or SEAL—was a shoebox-sized sensor designed to study how a spacecraft’s landing disturbs moon dust....

Aducanumab, marketed as “Aduhelm,” is an antiamyloid monoclonal antibody and the latest in a procession of such drugs to be tested against Alzheimer’s disease. Over the last several decades, billions have been spent targeting the amyloid that clumps together to form the neuritic plaques first documented by German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer in 1906. This class of drugs has reduced amyloid aggregation; however, since 2000, there has been a virtual 100 percent fail rate in clinical trials, with some therapies actually worsening patient outcomes....

Famous for facilitating an incredible exchange of culture and goods between the East and the West, the ancient Silk Road is thought to have meandered across long horizontal distances in mountain foothills and the lowlands of the Gobi Desert. But new archaeological evidence hidden in a lofty tomb reveals that it also ventured into the high altitudes of Tibet—a previously unknown arm of the trade route. Discovered in 2005 by monks, the 1,800-year-old tomb sits 4....

Why do we get food cravings? —J. Shelton, Ogden, Utah Peter Pressman of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., and Roger Clemens of the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy reply: HANKERINGS for certain foods are not linked to any obvious nutrient insufficiency. But other biological factors appear to be at work. Researchers have employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neural basis of such appetites....

Key concepts Physics Potential energy Kinetic energy Conservation of energy Simple machine Introduction Admit it, you’ve probably launched a rubber band at least once—pulled one end back, and let it go flying. Did you ever suspect that rubber bands could also be a fun way to learn about physics and engineering? Find out in this project where you’ll build a rubber band–powered car. Background When you stretch a rubber band it stores potential energy....

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. Aerosols — those light, microscopic, drifting droplets that we release when we talk and that can contain SARS-CoV-2 — were responsible for about 60 percent of new infections in the January outbreak of the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, according to a new study covered by Benedict Carey and James Glanz at The New York Times (7/30/20)....

Pluto, please step aside. The beleaguered world has for the past several years been at the center of the debate about what defines a planet. Now a new crop of astronomical objects has arrived to further cloud the matter. The Pluto issue was formally resolved in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) relegated Pluto and its diminutive ilk to dwarf planet status. (The conversation has not stopped, however; among a number of recent Pluto-centric books are titles like The Case for Pluto and How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming....

Have you ever noticed that you feel hungrier or have uncontrollable cravings for certain foods after a poor night’s sleep? It’s not just your imagination—there’s a link between sleep and hunger. Studies show that even a single night of sleep deprivation changes the levels of our hunger and appetite hormones, leading to increased hunger. It also affects the way your brain’s motivation centers respond to the sight (or even the thought) of food....

A little before sunrise on July 4, A.D. 1054, imperial astronomers of the Song Dynasty in China spotted an unknown star lighting up the eastern sky. “It’s as bright as Venus, with pointed rays in all four directions and a reddish-white color,” they wrote in notes delivered to the emperor. The glow, which remained visible to the naked eye during the day for almost a month, was from an explosion caused by the spectacular death of a star located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus....