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In the rough-and-tumble world of science, disputes are usually settled in time, as a convergence of evidence accumulates in favor of one hypothesis over another. Until now. On April 10 economist John R. Lott, Jr., formerly of the American Enterprise Institute, filed a defamation lawsuit against economist Steven D. Levitt of the University of Chicago and HarperCollins, the publisher of Levitt’s 2005 book, Freakonomics. At issue is what Levitt meant when he wrote that scholars could not “replicate” Lott’s results, referring to Lott’s 1998 book, More Guns, Less Crime....

So the Senate has voted to start debate on a bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. Now what? Well, it gets wonky. The rules for budget reconciliation, the process the Senate is using that limits debate and allows a bill to pass with only a simple majority, comes with a set of very specific rules. Here are some of the big ones that could shape whatever final bill emerges: Matters Of Timing Unlike most other Senate bills, where deliberation can last for days or weeks, budget reconciliation rules limit debate to 20 hours....

The pink cherry blossoms that explode into bloom every spring in Washington, D.C., are famous around the country, flowering due to a courtesy gift from Japan more than a century ago. But one of the first attempts to send the flowers over to the capital didn’t go so well. A few seeds did make their way into the United States before the Japanese sent thousands in the 1900s. William S. Bigelow — an American physician living in Japan — and botanist Charles S....

Strip away the baby pictures, the cat GIFs and the high school reunion invitations, and what is lurking underneath your Facebook news feed is one of history’s most effective targeted advertising platforms. Facebook watches to learn what pleases you and what angers you, and it uses that information to auction ads to companies that want to reach consumers with your specific profile. It also watches what everyone else likes, then shows you more of whatever is most engaging that day—the better to keep you scrolling, so that you’ll encounter more ads....

In 2010 Brian David Johnson became Intel Corp.’s first futurist, a time-honored title bestowed on prognosticating technology mavens dating back to the likes of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Equal parts seer and evangelist, Johnson helps map out the future of technology and then guides his company toward that destination, whether it is five years or even a decade away. Johnson draws inspiration from science fiction but tries to ground his vision of the future in reality through speaking engagements in front of audiences most likely to be affected by Intel’s technology, such as attendees of the pop culture convention Comic-Con....

What is monkeypox? Monkeypox is a disease caused by a virus in the orthopoxvirus group, which includes smallpox. The monkeypox virus—a DNA virus—was first identified in monkeys in a lab in Denmark in 1958, but it is more typically found in rodents and other animals. It has caused periodic outbreaks since the 1970s in Central and West Africa, where the virus has been found in several animal species. The virus has occasionally infected people outside of Africa; in 2003 people in the U....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. For Americans who live along the east and Gulf of Mexico coasts, the end of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season on Nov. 30 was a relief. This year forecasters recorded 17 named storms, 10 of which became hurricanes. Six were major hurricanes (Category 3 or stronger), and three made landfall: Harvey in Texas, Irma in the Caribbean and Florida, and Maria in the Caribbean and Puerto Rico....

Thanks to the rapid-fire growth of broadband network connectivity, video voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services now give callers around the world the ability to gab away for no more than the cost of their monthly Internet service provider fee. Until now, though, the video capabilities have been little more than a novelty that tempts callers with grainy images of their friends and family that lack the ability to capture their movement with any fluidity....

New genetic evidence supports the view that Columbus introduced syphilis to Europe. The first recorded syphilis epidemic happened in 1495, fueling centuries of debate as to whether the germ came from the Americas or existed previously in the Old World but had not been distinguished from other skin-lesion diseases until 1500. To uncover syphilis’s origins, scientists at Emory University and their colleagues genetically compared strains of the microbe from around the world with related bacteria....

On a summer evening three years ago my wife and I counted 75 little brown bats scrabbling out from behind four small shutters on our house in upstate New York and setting off for a night of insect foraging. A year later the number had swelled to 150; the moth and mosquito populations were becoming less bothersome than ever before. Then things took an abrupt turn for the worse: last year the numbers plummeted, and on a recent summer evening this year only six bats emerged....

When it comes to perhaps the largest and most complex policy challenge facing the Obama administration—finally slowing the pace of global warming before dangerous changes become unstoppable—the new president stares down a Dickensian paradox. On the one hand, it’s the best of times for dealing with the issue. The Democratic-controlled Congress is itching for action, with environmentalist Californians Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Henry Waxman at the head of key committees....

Plastic found in mussels from Arctic to China - enters human food OSLO (Reuters) - Tiny bits of plastic are contaminating mussels from the European Arctic to China in a sign of the global spread of ocean pollution that can end up on people’s dinner plates. Mussels in apparently pristine Arctic waters had most plastic of any tested along the Norwegian coast, according to a study this month by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA)....

Ten national parks in California could be headed for steep temperature increases over the next century that could alter their ecosystems and drive tourism from some of the more iconic settings in the western United States. This is the conclusion from a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. The study applied “medium to high” future emissions estimates of heat-trapping gases, as assumed by the California state government, to models designed to assess what effect climate change would have on national parks like Yosemite, Death Valley, Redwood, Joshua Tree and Sequoia....

The U.S.’s nuclear reactor fleet dipped below 100 for the first time in decades, when, at the tail end of 2014, Vermont Yankee shuttered its operations. The 604-megawatt power plant’s termination did not come as a surprise: it had logged a slew of safety issues in recent years, including burst pipes, leaks and misplaced fuel rods. Nevertheless, it provided up to 4 percent of New England’s power and one third of Vermont’s....

Key concepts DNA Genome Genes Extraction Laboratory techniques Introduction Have you ever wondered how scientists extract DNA from an organism? All living organisms have DNA, which is short for deoxyribonucleic acid; it is basically the blueprint for everything that happens inside an organism’s cells. Overall, DNA tells an organism how to develop and function, and is so important that this complex compound is found in virtually every one of its cells....

On Thursday the United States House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, run by Texas Republican Lamar Smith, retweeted a Breitbart News story that dismissed climate change as “a scare” manufactured by “alarmists”. An overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that the phenomenon is real and primarily the result of human activities, and many of them took to social media to express their dismay (to put it mildly) that the committee, which oversees government offices such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admiration, would promote such a misguided article....

The 1987 discovery of materials that conduct electricity perfectly at temperatures above the boiling point of nitrogen (-196 degrees Celsius) seemed to herald a revolutionary era of technology. But turning the promise of these so-called high-temperature superconductors into commercial reality has proved to be a long, arduous task. It is one thing to produce a small sample of a superconductor for experiments in a laboratory and quite another to manufacture hundreds of meters of high-quality wire for applications....

At the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, tucked away in the trees near Chiang Mai, a pair of Asian elephants gazes at two bowls of corn on the other side of a net. The corn is attached to a sliding platform, through which researchers have threaded a rope. The rope’s ends lie on the elephants’ side of the net. If only one elephant pulls an end, the rope slides out of the contraption....

In their May 2015 Scientific American article “Cellular Small Talk,” Dale W. Laird, Paul D. Lampe and Ross G. Johnson report on recent discoveries showing that the disruption of cellular structures called gap junctions can cause various diseases. Gap junctions consist of thousands of channels that allow ions (charged atoms) and small molecules to flow directly from the inside of one cell to that of a neighboring one. The article also delves into the discovery of gap junctions and tells the detective story of how investigators worked out the details of how cells make these massive structures....

Chemist Vlodek Gabara, a DuPont Fellow, explains. Kevlar is an organic fiber in the aromatic polyamide (aramid) family that combines high strength with light weight, and comfort with protection. Kevlar is five times stronger than steel on an equal weight basis and provides reliable performance and solid strength. This unique combination of attributes ensures that members of law enforcement, corrections personnel and the military will be safe from harm that can come in many forms, including bullets, knives, switchblades and shrapnel....