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The EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program currently requires energy companies to report only those emissions from fracking operations that involve flaring — the industry’s practice of burning off excess natural gas at a well site. Scientists have called for a more thorough accounting of the energy industry’s greenhouse gas emissions so they can fully understand how oil and gas operations affect climate change. Many studies have shown that methane frequently leaks from oil and gas operations, but too little public information exists for researchers to know the specific sources of the emissions....

Southern Utah is national park country—five parks spread across scenic red rock canyons and picturesque mesas. It’s also the scene of the Obama administration’s ongoing coal leasing program, which allows mining companies to produce coal on federally-owned public land. At a time when climate scientists are warning with increasing urgency that many fossil fuel resources must be left in the ground, the federal government is leasing publicly-owned land and minerals for coal mining at an increasing rate, especially in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah....

INFECTIONS BY THE NUMBERS Outbreaks of infectious diseases are rising around the world, although deaths are dropping. Here we show several snapshots that capture these trends. Recently in the U.S., the number of people getting sick from certain ailments has risen. Worldwide, the number of people killed from many types of infections has decreased over the long term, although the trend varies at different economic levels. Overall, disease outbreaks, a measure that includes both sickness and death, have become more frequent, with more varied causes....

The current COVID-19 pandemic has claimed an estimated 18.2 million lives globally1, but it could have been worse. Without vaccines, the death toll could have been closer to 40 million2. A future pandemic, set off by a putative ‘Disease X’, could be even worse, and health-care experts want to be prepared. Disease X, in this instance, is the unknown pathogen, as designated by the World Health Organization (WHO), with potential to cause a serious international epidemic....

The veined wing of the clanger cicada kills bacteria solely through its physical structure — one of the first natural surfaces found to do so. An international team of biophysicists has now come up with a detailed model of how this defense works on the nanoscale. The results are published in the latest issue of the Biophysical Journal. The clanger cicada (Psaltoda claripennis) is a locust-like insect whose wings are covered by a vast hexagonal array of ’nanopillars’ — blunted spikes on a similar size scale to bacteria (see video, bottom)....

SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. For the scientific community, the release of public polls on contentious questions of science usually makes us feel like Bill Murray’s character in the film Groundhog Day. As in each repeating day in Punxsutawney, each new poll asks the same questions and gets the same discouraging answers. And news outlets produce the same stories about the large percentage of Americans who reject evolution or climate change or believe in UFOs or ghosts....

The nation’s largest grain ethanol producer, Poet LLC, will use state and federal grants to start work on the company’s first commercial cellulosic refinery in Iowa. The Sioux Falls, S.D.-based company is preparing to convert a 50-million-gallon-a-year grain ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa, into an integrated refinery that would produce fuels from both corn kernels and cobs. “Project Liberty” would begin production in 2011 with a 125-million-gallon-a-year nameplate capacity, followed by several more dual-fuel plants throughout the state, company officials claim....

DNA testing won’t guide dieters to the weight-loss regimen most likely to work for them, scientists reported on Tuesday. Despite some earlier studies claiming that genetic variants predict whether someone has a better chance of shedding pounds on a low-carbohydrate or a low-fat diet, and despite a growing industry premised on that notion, the most rigorous study so far found no difference in weight loss between overweight people on diets that “matched” their genotype and those on diets that didn’t....

Key concepts Physics Gas Pressure Temperature Volume Gas laws Introduction If you have marshmallows left over from camping or just an at-home s’mores dessert, you can put them to work for a science exploration! Did you realize that this sticky, tasty treat is mostly air, trapped in a stretchy substance? Have you ever tried to expand a marshmallow without getting your hands all sticky? How did you do it? And how big did it get?...

An unmanned Russian cargo ship carrying tons of supplies for astronauts on the International Space Station suffered a major malfunction after launching today (Aug. 24) and ultimately crashed back to Earth, NASA officials say. The robotic Progress 44 cargo ship blasted off atop a Soyuz U rocket at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) from the central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and was due to arrive at the space station on Friday....

Cancer patients have primarily been limited to one option for care — chemotherapy — which attacks almost any cell that replicates quickly. Recently, however, predictive biomarkers have opened the door to matching patients with targeted treatments based on their unique disease biology. As objective, quantifiable measures of biological processes, biomarkers can reveal details of a patient’s disease and its progression, as well as how they might respond to treatment. Tumor mutation burden (TMB) is a measurement of the number of mutations carried by tumor cells and an emerging area of focus in biomarker research....

The United States isn’t ready for the public health problems climate change will bring, experts warned Congress last week. From the spread of insect-borne disease to the risks to public health centers and outpatient facilities from environmental disasters, public health professionals on Capitol Hill told congressional staffers there is much work to be done to prepare for potential health risks to the American public at the federal, state and local levels....

Spring has finally sprung, which means bathing suit season is just around the corner. That ominous thought will lead many Americans to start a workout routine in the coming weeks, but having great abs at the beach isn’t the most important reason to exercise. Too little exercise is responsible for 9% of premature deaths worldwide, and we know that physical activity improves mental health as well as reducing the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer....

Severe flooding during Hurricane Florence has provided new evidence that accumulating heat in the world’s oceans from climate change is bringing new dangers to the nation’s coastlines. Rising ocean energy is closely connected to the growing size of storms, the intensity of their rains and the resulting flood damage, according to scientists. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., says Florence’s power underscores new research that suggests storms are being “supercharged” by rising temperatures and that states and the federal government should do more to prepare for them....

Liz Williams was standing pitchside at a women’s rugby match, and she did not like what she was seeing. Williams, who researches forensic biomechanics at Swansea University, UK, had equipped some of the players with a mouthguard that contained a sensor to measure the speed of head movement. She wanted to understand more about head injuries in the brutal sport. “There were a few instances when my blood went cold,” Williams said....

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered three new species of animals in a rainforest ’lost world’ in Australia, protected for millions of years by almost impenetrable stacks of granite boulders.The new animals are a leaf-tail gecko, a golden-colored skink and a boulder-dwelling frog living in the unique rocky rainforest in Cape Melville, some 1,500 km (900 miles) north west of Brisbane, Australia’s third most populous city.“They just look completely distinct, so as soon as you see them you think ‘Wow, that thing is definitely new’,” Conrad Hoskin of James Cook University, who led the expedition with the U....

In recent years, scores of corporations have made renewable energy pledges. RE100, a corporate initiative aimed at getting companies to commit to purchasing all their electricity from renewables, counts 176 companies among its members, including Ikea, Coca-Cola Co. and Apple Inc. But in many cases, firms aren’t actually consuming renewable energy. They’re signing power purchase contracts with renewable developers. Electricity from the developments goes into the grid. Companies get renewable energy credits, which they use to offset emissions from their power consumption....

Autonomy, peer relationships, and parental conflict — these are the universal themes that made the popular 1990s comic Zits identifiable for anyone who has, or has been, a teenager. In one strip, hands in pockets and making a sullen sideways glance, Jeremy slouches next to his father. His t-shirt reads, “question authority.” Next to him, his equally chagrined father sports the t-shirt: “do not question my authority.” While his parents work to steer the 16-year-old in the right direction on his path to adulthood, Jeremy is equally determined to forge his own way....

The COVID pandemic devastated nursing homes. People living in long-term care facilities represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population but account for a third of its COVID deaths: more than 174,000 people as of early March. And it wasn’t just residents—nursing home workers had one of the deadliest jobs last year. Problems with long-term care precede COVID. Most Americans say they want to remain at home as long as possible as they age, yet many cannot afford such care and wind up in a nursing facility....

Thousands of years ago massive elephantlike creatures wandered the landscape, gobbling up then defecating fruit. In the process, they may have planted the seeds for primordial forests. But with these creatures long extinct, ecologists have been left with a puzzle: If these trees are still with us, what—if anything—disperses these seeds to create today’s woodlands? The answer—at least for one type of forest—may lie in the criminal antics of a cunning rodent....