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Global temperatures are inching closer to a worrisome climate milestone, scientists reported this week. That doesn’t mean ambitious climate goals are out of reach, they say — but the deadline to act is rapidly approaching. According to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization and the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office, there’s about a 24% chance the world’s average temperatures will rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above their preindustrial levels during at least one of the years between 2020 and 2024....

As a birder, I never thought I’d find myself running through traffic chasing house sparrows. Crossing New York City’s Lincoln Highway in Times Square to the nearest patch of green, I saw some of these birds foraging in the grass amidst some sunbathers. Inhibitions to the wind, I whipped out my iPhone and made the camera in my new Birdsnap app zoom in as far as it would go. A sparrow alighted nearby....

An analysis of a string of three deadly earthquakes that struck Italy in 2016 suggests that they occurred in a sequence constrained by their geology. The conclusion, which has provoked some excitement among earthquake researchers, raises the tantalizing possibility that seismologists could produce useful forecasts of the quakes that follow this type of quake—called a sequence quake—potentially saving lives. But many challenges remain, including how to helpfully communicate risk to people who might be affected....

Even though mysteries remain about COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus that causes the disease, scientists have generated an incredible amount of detailed knowledge about how the virus works and how we can stop it. Thousands of different coronaviruses inhabit the planet. Four of them are responsible for many of our common colds. Two others already triggered alarming outbreaks of disease: in 2002 a coronavirus caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed more than 770 people worldwide, and in 2012 a different strain started Middle East respiratory syndrome, taking more than 800 lives....

The oceans are in trouble—overfishing has led to depletion of fish stocks around the world and has driven many species to critically endangered status. But what to do about it? Officials have responded to the collapse of fishery stocks with a slew of regulations, many of them forcing fishing operators to be more selective in their harvest, whether by targeting certain species and regional populations, by mandating size or gender restrictions on catches, or by defining open and closed seasons for fishing....

Ondine has autism. Even though she had always struggled with making friends, she did well in high school, earning good grades. Her school district offered support services for students with developmental disorders, and with that assistance she successfully enrolled in a local college. Yet when those supports disappeared after graduation, “she basically fell apart,” says her mother, Amira. A month into her freshman year of college, Ondine stopped going to classes and completing assignments; eventually she stopped leaving her dorm room altogether....

The latest round of preparatory talks for the U.N. climate conference concluded today with negotiators lamenting that the languid pace of talks could mean there won’t be a deal on emissions in Copenhagen this December. “It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. For any hope of a deal, he said, “the speed of the negotiations must be considerably accelerated at the [next] meeting in Bangkok....

Discovery of new psychiatric medication, whether for the treatment of depression, autism or schizophrenia, is at a virtual standstill. As just one example, the antidepressants on the market today are no more effective at reversing the mood disorder than those that first became available in the 1950s. New thinking is desperately needed to aid the estimated 14 million American adults who suffer from severe mental illness. Innovation would likely accelerate if pharmacologists did not have to confront an antiquated legal framework that, in effect, declares off-limits a set of familiar compounds that could potentially serve as the chemical basis for entire new classes of drugs....

You’re about to savor your first bite from a delicious candy apple when, just as your teeth are about to sink in, the fruit–candy combo slips from its stick and plummets to the ground. The clock is ticking. You quickly snatch the fallen morsel, well within five seconds—the acknowledged time limit for determining whether dropped food should end up in your mouth or in the trash. What happens next is generally a judgment call depending on several factors—what was dropped, where it was dropped and the victim’s level of hunger....

Firefighters battled nearly two dozen wildfires in California yesterday after a week of raging blazes blackened more than 1 million acres across the state. The fast-moving fires, which are seen by many scientists as a sign of climate change, have killed five people, destroyed more than 1,000 structures and forced thousands to flee. More than 238,000 people either evacuated or were ready to go as more thunderstorms threatened to light new fires yesterday afternoon, according to officials....

For the first time in history the Food and Drug Administration plans to regulate the level of nicotine in cigarettes, attempting to bring it down to “non-addictive” levels. The move, announced Friday, was praised by scientists — who also noted that there’s no consensus on what a “non-addictive” level of nicotine is. “I guess I personally would frame it as less addictive, because I’m not sure about that, ‘non-addictive,’” said Eric Donny, director of the Center for the Evaluation of Nicotine and Cigarettes at the University of Pittsburgh, who noted that FDA commissioner Dr....

Since World War II, most countries around the world have come to use gross domestic product, or GDP, as the core metric for prosperity. The GDP measures market output: the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in an economy during a given period, usually a year. Governments can fail if this number falls—and so, not surprisingly, governments strive to make it climb. But striving to grow GDP is not the same as ensuring the well-being of a society....

Take the high ground! The American soldier has been admonished to do so countless times during the nation’s hard-fought military history. With strong input from the U.S. Air Force, the Bush administration is reportedly pushing that dictate to the final frontier. The military use of space has proceeded for decades with the deployment of spy, communications and navigation satellites. The new administration directive would move the U.S. from space militarization to “weaponization,” opening the way to both offensive and defensive arms in the firmament....

Researchers in South Africa are racing to track the concerning rise of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The variant harbours a large number of the mutations found in other variants, including Delta, and it seems to be spreading quickly across South Africa. A top priority is to follow the variant more closely as it spreads: it was first identified in Botswana earlier this month and has since turned up in a traveller arriving in Hong Kong from South Africa....

History buffs take heart! Your love of presidential particulars may set you apart from many of your peers—and give you an edge in an intriguing memory test that may illustrate the typical pattern of cultural forgetfulness. Follow the instructions below to take the presidential memory test and then see how your performance compares with various groups of Americans at different points in time. In 1974, 1991 and 2009 researchers led by psychologist Roddy Roediger at Washington University in Saint Louis asked college students to recall as many presidents’ names as possible, in the chronological order that they served....

When Ebola flared up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last month, a wave of international public health workers had just left the country, where they had been deployed to combat cholera. But less than two weeks after leaving, some were rushing back to help with the new crisis. Alhassane Touré was among them. As the physician who quickly became the coordinator of the World Health Organization’s efforts to roll out an experimental anti-Ebola inoculation in the DRC, he was needed on the ground....

As if being stuck sick in bed wasn’t bad enough, several studies conducted during the past few years have found that the immune response to illness can cause depression. Recently scientists have pinpointed an enzyme that could be the culprit, as it is linked to both chronic inflammation—such as that found in patients with coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis—and depressive symptoms in mice. In the new study, immuno­physiologist Keith Kelley and his colleagues at the University of Illinois exposed mice to a tuberculosis vaccine that produces a low-grade, chronic inflammation....

A Kuwaiti law requiring all residents to submit to genetic testing has sparked international outcry—and there are signs it’s also drawing a muted civil opposition from locals fearful of its scope. The controversial law, passed in July 2015, mandates that the country’s 1.2 million citizens and another 2.3 million foreigners living in Kuwait submit DNA samples to a new government database. Legislators defend the mandate as a security measure to help the government keep track of criminals and terrorists....

By Ratnajyoti Dutta NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Floods triggered by heavy rains have inundated nearly 200 villages in northern India, killing at least 21 people and leaving thousands homeless, officials said on Sunday, as forecasts for more rain prompted fresh flood warnings. The latest rain has caused landslides and floods in many parts of India and neighboring Nepal, where at least 90 people have been killed since Thursday, according to the latest government update....

On the morning of June 2, rumors began swirling that NASA was about to announce its latest choices for interplanetary missions, selecting the long-awaited winners of the agency’s competition for new spacecraft in its relatively low-priced Discovery exploration program. Four contending teams anxiously awaited the results: One wished to send a mission to Jupiter’s hypervolcanic moon Io. Another desired a visit to Triton, a cryovolcanic moon of Neptune. And the other two wanted to go to Venus, a destination the space agency had neglected for decades....