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The woman disappeared. She had been coming to our group therapy sessions for months, and suddenly she stopped. Other group members told me why: she had been beaten so badly by her husband that she ended up in the hospital. The assault happened while her husband was, to use a too dainty phrase, “under the influence” of alcohol. I wish this were an isolated incident, but alcohol is a common instigator of violence against others, as well as harm to oneself....

The sun is a tempestuous place prone to proton and electron particle storms that can speed across a 150-million-kilometer space chasm to bash into Earth’s atmosphere, potentially disrupting satellite service, damaging telecommunications networks, causing power grid blackouts and endangering high-altitude aircraft as well as astronauts on board the International Space Station. With the cycle of solar storms set to peak in the next three to five years, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) are searching for ways to gather and analyze information that will enable them to forecast severe solar storms....

This year is on track to be the second-hottest on record, surprising climate scientists who thought natural weather patterns could break a multiyear trend of record-breaking temperature increases. Global temperatures this year have been 1.64 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average of 56.3 F, according to NOAA. That’s second only to last year, by a difference of about 0.29 F. Last year is the warmest on record. Each of the last three years have broken global high temperatures records....

If U.S. leaders better understood the politics of impoverished and crisis-ridden countries, they would more effectively protect American national security by advancing the causes of economic development and democracy. Although the administration of George W. Bush has often stated its commitment to the spread of democracy, partly to combat the risks of terror, it relies excessively on military approaches and threats rather than strategic aid. Timely development assistance to places hovering between democracy and disarray can yield enormous benefits....

James B. Snow, Jr., a physician, emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, offers this reply. The medical term for ringing in the ears is tinnitus, which means noise in Latin. Tinnitus is not limited to ringing but may be perceived as whistling, buzzing, humming, hissing, roaring, chirping or other noise. Its technical definition is the perception of any of these sounds in the absence of an acoustic stimulus in the surrounding environment....

What physiological changes can explain the honeymoon phase of a relationship? —Emily Lenneville, Baltimore Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., associate professor of psychology at Monmouth University and co-editor of www.ScienceOfRelationships.com, replies: Ah, the honeymoon stage—that magical time when your partner is still perfect and you are very much in love. This period features high levels of passionate love, characterized by intense feelings of attraction and ecstasy, as well as an idealization of one’s partner....

In a world’s first, researchers in France and the U.S. have performed a pioneering experiment demonstrating “hybrid” quantum networking. The approach, which unites two distinct methods of encoding information in particles of light called photons, could eventually allow for more capable and robust communications and computing. Similar to how classical electronics can represent information as digital or analog signals, quantum systems can encode information as either discrete variables (DVs) in particles or continuous variables (CVs) in waves....

Reductionist biology—examining individual brain parts, neural circuits and molecules—has brought us a long way, but it alone cannot explain the workings of the human brain, an information processor within our skull that is perhaps unparalleled anywhere in the universe. We must construct as well as reduce and build as well as dissect. To do that, we need a new paradigm that combines both analysis and synthesis. The father of reductionism, French philosopher René Descartes, wrote about the need to investigate the parts and then reassemble them to re-create the whole....

African nations are gearing up to battle an invasive crop pest called the fall armyworm, which has been rapidly spreading across the continent since its arrival there just over a year ago. The caterpillar has wreaked destruction on staple crops including maize (corn), millet and sorghum. Experts warn that Europe and Asia could be next. Officials gathered for an emergency meeting—organized by the regional Africa office of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations—in Harare, Zimbabwe, earlier this month to coordinate their response....

When scientist Jay Rotella stepped out of the cargo plane’s dark cavern onto Antarctica for the first time, all he saw for miles was white snow and black rock. “It’s hard to believe there is an entire pristine continent set aside – and you are standing on it,” said Rotella, who studies Weddell seals. Yet Antarctica is not untouched. Penguins, fish, sea sponges and even worms there are contaminated with flame retardants....

When Adrianna and Jermaine Hannon’s second child, Jayden, was 14 months old, the California couple began to worry that something was wrong. The child became preoccupied with toy cars, turning them over and rolling their wheels ceaselessly at an age when most other toddlers flit from one activity to another. Jayden would also line up cars, magazines or blocks on the floor or a table in as straight a line as he could make, never stacking objects as other kids would....

Probing the human brain directly presents great medical and ethical hurdles. Researchers’ efforts are also often stunted by limitations imposed by imperfect models. That latter restriction, at least, may soon ease: IBM recently announced plans to build a digital model of the brain. IBM’s Blue Gene, regarded as the world’s most powerful supercomputer, will be used over the next two years by company researchers, in collaboration with the Brain Mind Institute at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, to simulate the electrochemistry of the neocortex—the large part of the brain responsible for cognition....

By Meredith WadmanLast month, Joseph Ng, a biologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), sat down with very mixed feelings to write a job advertisement for a new chair of the biology department. The provisional draft said that the department was seeking “an energetic and visionary leader” who could preside over the hiring of several junior faculty members.What the ad didn’t talk about, and couldn’t possibly describe, were the events that left so many holes to fill....

For doctors at the University of California, San Diego, it was seemingly a no-lose proposition: A 73-year-old patient’s bladder cancer was slowly progressing but he was generally stable and strong. He seemed like the ideal candidate for an immunotherapy drug, atezolizumab, or Tecentriq, that had just been approved to treat bladder cancer patients. Doctors started the patient on the drug in June. It was a spectacular failure: Within six weeks, he was removed from the drug, and he died two months later....

A woman we’ll call Sally lived in a small town deep in the heart of Texas hill country, a long, rippled patch of land wet with creeks and big oaks growing right out of the water. It’s mostly middle class, mostly Christian, the sort of place where you don’t have to lock your doors because you already know all your nosy neighbors. She lived with her husband, and her kids were grown....

Have you heard about the brain benefits of blueberries? How about caffeine? Or red wine? And let’s not forget kale, which seems to be good for all that ails you. There’s no end to the assertions about how one food or another will sharpen your concentration, even out your moods or protect your brain from the ravages of time. Alas, such magic exists only in our hopeful hearts (and popular media)....

When a new, highly infectious disease lands on U.S. shores, four unique treatment centers stand ready to contain and treat it. Sprinkled across the east coast, Midwest and Rocky Mountain west, these “biocontainment units” inside larger facilities have been funded and tapped by the federal government to take patients who could otherwise fuel a devastating epidemic. These centers made the news in August as Ebola patients began to arrive in the U....

A new class of species may have been invented, and all in the name of safety. Colonies of Escherichia coli—the gut bug famous from food poisoning outbreaks—have had their genetics tweaked in a way that prods them to produce useful molecules, such as fuels or pharmaceuticals. But such modified microbes might prove problematic if the microscopic bacteria escape the lab, especially if researchers’ goal of endowing them with resistance to viral infection via genetic manipulation is achieved....

Whipped by winds exceeding 90 mph and battered by 15-foot waves, hundreds of wind turbines produce electricity off the coast of the North Sea and send it onshore to power homes and businesses in the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark. Thousands more will be erected in the next 15 years, and bigger will be better as far as turbine makers are concerned. The top offshore turbine makers, Vestas and Siemens, are preparing for rapid market growth and are developing 7-megawatt and 6 MW turbines, respectively....

A draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion leaked in May 2022 suggested the nation’s highest court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion. The opinion was first reported by Politico. After it was officially issued in June, many U.S. states passed laws—or enforced existing ones—greatly restricting access to the procedure. One of the most comprehensive studies conducted to date shows that those who are denied an abortion—and thus forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy—experience lasting negative effects on their health, well-being and finances....