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Although the right mental and physical preparation does help, it is also clear that success depends heavily on our genes. In The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (Current Hardcover, 2013), Sports Illustrated writer David Epstein combs through the scientific literature to explain the complexities of the nature versus nurture debate. “Even at the most basic level, it’s always a hardware and software story,” he writes. But for some, no amount of dedicated training will do the trick....

On hatching, loggerhead turtles make a beeline under cover of darkness from nests in the sand to the open ocean. The turtles will return to the same beaches perhaps a decade later, when they have grown 10-fold: born barely bigger than a slice of pepperoni, they arrive the size of a large pizza. The time in between is known to marine biologists as the turtles’ “lost years.” Exactly how the juveniles spend their time during those years and how they survive has remained a mystery for decades....

When U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003, they fought a traditional war of human on human. Since then, robots have joined the fight. Both there and in Afghanistan, thousands of “unmanned” systems dismantle roadside IEDs, take that first peek around the corner at a sniper’s lair and launch missiles at Taliban hideouts. Robots are pouring onto battlefields as if a new species of mechanotronic alien had just landed on our planet....

Although they are, in cosmic terms, mere scraps—insignificant to the grand narrative of heavenly expansion—planets are the most diverse and intricate class of object in the universe. No other celestial bodies support such a complex interplay of astronomical, geologic, and chemical and biological processes. No other places in the cosmos could support life as we know it. The worlds of our solar system come in a tremendous variety, and even they hardly prepared us for the discoveries of the past decade, during which astronomers have found more than 200 planets....

I was 21 years old when I encountered the place where sharks and television intersect. It was my first research internship, working with a famous shark scientist I had long admired but only just met. My second week, I was on a boat with a film crew, chumming for sharks in the background while the senior scientist dispensed expertise in the foreground. At one point, the film crew suggested I sit next to my hero on camera and repeat the prompt: “So, [Dr....

Three spatial dimensions are visible all around us–up/down, left/right, forward/backward. Add time to the mix, and the result is a four-dimensional blending of space and time known as spacetime. Thus, we live in a four-dimensional universe. Or do we? Amazingly, some new theories of physics predict that one of the three dimensions of space could be a kind of an illusion–that in actuality all the particles and fields that make up reality are moving about in a two-dimensional realm like the Flatland of Edwin A....

Color lives in the memories, as well as the eyes, of the beholder, suggests a German study of how people perceive the color, or colorlessness, of fruit. Karl Gegenfurtner and his colleagues at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen put their subjects in front of a computer screen with digital images of fruits—a banana, for example—in brown, purple or any arbitrary color. The subjects were then instructed to use the computer’s software to manipulate the fruits’ color....

A warm wind blows across an empty field on the outskirts of Pawnee, Okla. A small group of researchers struggle against the stiff wind to set up a pop-up tent for some shade. Nearby a young man opens a heavy Pelican case to reveal a pile of explosives.“These are inert,” he says, “but we’re lucky to be working at a range that has so many different kinds of munitions.” The range is an explosive-ordnance-disposal field laboratory maintained by Oklahoma State University, and the researchers are led by Jasper Baur and Gabriel Steinberg, co-founders of the Demining Research Community, a nonprofit organization bridging academic research and humanitarian demining efforts....

Most U.S. cities have tree-planting programs, but not all urban tree canopies are created equal, according to a new analysis from American Forests. The conservation organization said today that the United States needs to plant more than a half-billion new trees to achieve an equitable urban canopy across nearly 500 metropolitan areas and 150,000 local communities. The findings are based on a new “Tree Equity Score” data tool that allows users to see where urban trees exist, and where they don’t....

By Steve Holland U.S. President Donald Trump signed two orders on Tuesday to move forward with construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, rolling back key Obama administration environmental policies in favor of expanding energy infrastructure. Trump campaigned on promises to increase domestic energy industry production and before taking office indicated he supported completion of the Dakota pipeline and revival of the Keystone XL project. But a restart of the projects would mark a defeat for Native American tribes affected by the $3....

Earlier the World Health Organization set a goal of having at least 10 percent of every country‘s population vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of this month. It aimed to then raise that figure to 40 percent by the end of the year and to 70 percent by the middle of 2022. Sadly, these targets have little chance of being met. Of the more than 5.8 billion doses of COVID vaccines that have been administered across the world by mid-September, the vast majority (about 80 percent) have gone to people living in high- and upper-middle-income countries....

Google Glass is just the beginning. The search giant’s smartglasses are in the headlines, but numerous other players are also looking to cash in on what’s expected to be a boom in eyewear that puts virtual and augmented reality face-front. Smartglasses overlay digital information onto the wearer’s view of the real world. Usage scenarios are limited only by developers’ imaginations. Google Glass has apps for search, navigation, photo capture and sharing, to name a few....

If GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie were to be believed one way to help tamp down the threat of Zika in the United States would be to quarantine individuals with symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness coming into the country from Brazil. The World Health Organization has already said that such measures would not be a good idea, however. The director-general of the WHO, Margaret Chan, specifically said earlier this month that there is “no public health justification for restrictions on travel or trade to prevent the spread of Zika virus....

No drug has fueled the current spike in overdose deaths more than fentanyl. The synthetic opioid claimed two thirds of the record 64,000 such fatalities in the U.S. in 2016. Up to 100 times more potent than morphine, this compound has played a significant role in reducing Americans’ life expectancy for the second straight year. In three states—Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts—the drug was found responsible for at least 70 percent of opioid-related deaths, in what drug-harm reduction specialists have described as “slow-motion slaughter....

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 11 A.M. Eastern time to include comments from meteorologist Joe Bastardi. Icicle-covered oranges in Florida. The United Kingdom swamped with its coldest December in more than a century. Travelers stranded in airports surrounded by snowy fortresses. These have been some of the dominant images this winter, and now one forecaster says it’s going to get colder. Yesterday, an AccuWeather meteorologist predicted that January could be the chilliest for the nation as a whole since the 1980s....

On Sunday 15 August, geologist Hamidullah Waizy was interviewing job candidates at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum in Kabul when he was told the Taliban had entered the city, and he must evacuate. The next morning, he saw armed militants on the streets. Waizy, a researcher at Kabul Polytechnic University who was recently also appointed director-general of prospecting and exploration of mines at the ministry, was shocked by the city’s rapid fall....

Some researchers are celebrating this week’s announcement that a drug candidate for Alzheimer’s disease slowed the rate of cognitive decline for people in a clinical trial by 27%. Others, however, remain hesitant, wanting to see data beyond what was disclosed in a 27 September press release. If the results stand up, the treatment—called lecanemab—would be the first of its kind to show a strong signal of cognitive benefit in a robust trial....

The arrival of European diseases after Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492 may also have hastened the growth of forests by killing indigenous people farming the region, the scientists wrote in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The scientists said that a shift toward wetter conditions, perhaps caused by natural shifts in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, led to growth of more trees starting about 2,000 years ago....

The bacterium that causes the most cases of food poisoning in the U.S. could someday be responsible for much of the country’s transportation fuel. Researchers have used the tools of synthetic biology to manipulate the genes of Escherichia coli, a common gut bacterium, so that it can chew up vegetation to produce diesel and other hydrocarbons. E. coli is popular in genetic engineering because it is deeply studied and quite hardy, able to tolerate genetic changes well, says chemical engineer Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley....

The biggest utility in California will soon learn whether it can install as many as 7,600 electric vehicle charging stations, a controversial plan that would be the single largest deployment of plug-in spots in the country. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s proposal would have ratepayers foot the $160 million cost. The utility would partner with charging companies but largely would build and maintain the infrastructure. PG&E would prioritize placements at workplaces and multifamily housing, including apartment buildings....