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America went backward on climate in 2021. U.S. emissions rose 7 percent through the end of October, according to Carbon Monitor, an academic group that tracks emissions. The finding was echoed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which is also projecting a 7 percent increase in energy-related emissions. The increase puts the United States on a steep path to achieve President Biden’s climate goal of reducing emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030....

January 1966 Communication by laser “The announcement in 1960 that a working model of a laser had been achieved was greeted with enthusiasm by workers in many fields. Since the light produced by a laser is both coherent and monochromatic, it was felt at the time that the laser was the answer to a communication engineer’s prayer. Although a practical, working system of long-distance communication by laser has yet to be built, the initial enthusiasm has not waned....

Editor’s note: This Q&A is a part of a survey conducted by Scientific American of executives at companies engaged in developing and implementing non–fossil fuel energy technologies. What technical obstacles currently most curtail the growth of biofuels? What are the prospects for overcoming them in the near future and the longer-term? The conversion and commercialization of cellulose inputs into fuel ethanol is a significant technology obstacle to the growth of the ethanol industry as a mainstream fuel....

Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman Simon & Schuster, 2015 ($26.95) Of all the environmental challenges threatening worldwide infrastructure, rust, journalist Waldman admits, is not “sexy.” It creeps in gradually and seems like more of an aesthetic blight than a dire danger to the modern machinery our society depends on. Yet rust is costlier than all other natural disasters combined, Waldman explains, and the science of corrosion, along with the ingenious engineering strategies humans have devised to fight it, is fascinating....

WOMEN ARE MUCH CHOOSIER than men when it comes to romance. This is well known, but the reason for this gender difference is unclear. Evolutionary psychologists think it is because back in prehistoric times “dating” was much riskier for women. Men who made an ill-advised choice in the ancient version of a singles bar simply had one lousy night. Women who chose unwisely could end up facing years of motherhood without the critical help that a stable partner would have provided....

Climate change is messing with Washington’s cherry trees by forcing the plant’s pink-and-white blooms to pop earlier in the year. The new pattern, and the unpredictability it could bring, has caught the attention of scientists, but local shopkeepers should take note, too—as the change could affect when tourists come to see the fluffy blooms. “Long-term trends in both Washington D.C. and Japan reveal that cherry blossoms are emerging at increasingly earlier times,” Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said in a statement to E&E News....

Two days’ drive from the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, 100 miles from the country’s border with China, the foothills of the Altai Mountains slash a jagged brown line across the scrubby southern Gobi grasslands. Home to hungry wolves and snow leopards and brutal winters, it is rough country for herders such as 57-year-old Otgonbayar, a weather-beaten nomad who works his flock of 1,000-odd cashmere goats and two dozen sheep from the back of a 100-cc Chinese motorcycle....

A lethal virus that causes diarrhea and vomiting in pigs has entered the United States and has been found in 14 states. With the country’s $97-billion pork industry standing to lose millions of dollars in the event of a mass outbreak, scientists are working to track the virus and prevent its spread, even as they try to understand how it passed through biosecurity defenses in the first place. “How this virus got here, that’s the million-dollar question,” says James Collins, director of the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Minnesota in St Paul....

Whether it’s a college student playing a roommate their favorite song or a child showing their parent a dirty rock they found on the ground (“Not again!”), humans love sharing things we find fascinating just for the sake of it. The desire to sit your loved ones down and force them to watch your favorite movie has long been thought to be distinctly human—an inclination not shared by our primate relatives....

During a press conference in early September, President Donald Trump was asked when he thought a vaccine for COVID-19 might become available. His prediction was upbeat: “We’re going to have a vaccine very soon,” Trump said. “Maybe even before a very special day—you know what day I’m talking about.” Trump was referring, of course, to the presidential election on November 3. But the odds of a vaccine materializing for public use before then appear slim....

The steady rise of digital cameras has prompted the rapid growth of a new industry: instant photographic developing. A shutterbug brings her camera’s memory stick to a store, inserts it into a kiosk, selects the photographs she wants, and moments later prints drop into a chute. The machines seem to be everywhere. “In five years the number of digital kiosks has skyrocketed to 85,000 worldwide,” says Charles S. Christ, Jr., thermal systems director at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N....

We’re constantly being asked how we feel about nearly every aspect of our lives. Pop-up questionnaires collect data about common experiences like doctor’s visits, restaurant meals or trips to the cell phone store. And they can even pry into bigger life questions. How do you feel on a scale of, say, 1 to 10 about a job, a spouse, your health. Despite the ubiquitous presence of “like” scales everywhere we look, such ratings perplex scientists because they are wholly subjective and so thought to be of unclear relevance and accuracy....

The U.S. stock market plunged Monday, with the Dow Jones falling nearly 1,600 points at one point, the biggest single day drop in its history. It then turned around and regained 567 points on Tuesday. What the remainder of the week holds in store is anyone’s guess. Many experts had been forecasting a decline for months after a prolonged upswing resulted in a series of record highs. Several factors are likely to have been involved....

As they sail into interstellar space, NASA’s twin Voyager probes are entering a mysteriously complex realm. The spacecraft aren’t in completely uncharted territory though. Information from the Hubble Space Telescope is illuminating what may lay in front of the probes, revealing rich clouds of hydrogen along their path. The work is a rare marriage of two of the most famous space missions—and an unprecedented glimpse at the realm between the stars....

Over the past 10 years the number of overdose deaths from prescription painkillers—also known as opioid analgesics—has tripled, from 4,000 people in 1999 to more than 15,000 people every year in the U.S. today. Prescription pain medication now causes more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. In 2010 one in 20 Americans older than age 12 reported taking painkillers recreationally; some steal from pharmacies or buy them from a dealer, but most have a doctor’s prescription or gain access to pills through friends and relatives....

By Geoff BrumfielFor the first time in a decade, a worldwide ban on nuclear testing could be within reach. The combination of a strong commitment from US President Barack Obama, along with new data on nuclear materials and the successful completion of a global nuclear-monitoring network, means that momentum is once again swinging in favour of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would ban all nuclear explosions for military or civilian purposes....

CLIMATEWIRE | Global clean energy spending is expected to surge 12 percent in 2022, reaching $1.4 trillion as the world pours money into renewables, electric vehicles and energy efficiency, according to a recent International Energy Agency report. The finding, from IEA’s annual review of global energy investment, is especially notable because it represents an acceleration of the energy transition at a time when world leaders are prioritizing energy security and affordability due to the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine....

Norfolk, Va., is half a world away from Antarctica’s melting ice sheets. Yet this low-lying city on the Chesapeake Bay is one of the places most vulnerable to tidal flooding from rising sea levels in the U.S. As the climate heats up, in the most extreme scenario Norfolk and other East Coast communities can expect waters to climb as much as 11.5 feet—about 3.5 feet more than the global average—by 2100....

TV’s celebration this week of everything sharky comes during a summer with a record-high number of shark bites to swimmers in North Carolina. But that does not mean the risk of getting bitten by a shark is getting worse in North Carolina or anywhere else in the world. In fact, a new study suggests the risk might be dropping globally, just as it has off the California coast. Visitors there are now 91 percent less likely to be bitten by a great white than they were in 1950, researchers report in a paper set to be published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment in the next few weeks....

A human skeleton that was stolen from an underwater cave in Mexico in 2012 may be one of the oldest ever found in the Americas. Scientists have now put the age of the skeleton at more than 13,000 years old after analysing a shard of hip bone — left behind by the thieves because it was embedded in a stalagmite. Cave divers discovered the remains in February 2012 in a submerged cave called Chan Hol near Tulúm on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, and posted photos of a nearly complete skull and other whole bones to social media....