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A salamander’s limbs are smaller and a bit slimier than those of most people, but otherwise they are not that different from their human counterparts. The salamander limb is encased in skin, and inside it is composed of a bony skeleton, muscles, ligaments, tendons, nerves and blood vessels. A loose arrangement of cells called fibroblasts holds all these internal tissues together and gives the limb its shape. Yet a salamander’s limb is unique in the world of vertebrates in that it can regrow from a stump after an amputation....

Scientists are worried that EPA’s new plan to increase transparency will undermine it instead. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt yesterday unveiled a long-awaited plan to require that EPA studies used in future regulations must have open and transparent data. Pruitt said the proposed rule is part of his larger effort to dramatically reform the way science is used at the agency, which also included the removal of Science Advisory Board members who received EPA grants and were replaced with industry-friendly researchers....

The company truck that was tracked.(Credit:CBS New York Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)No reasonable employee wants their boss to know where they are all the time.Just as no reasonable boss wants his employees to know where she is all the time.In the former case, those who have to drive around know that one way to get around the problem is to purloin an (entirely illegal) GPS jammer.I understand from my underworld contacts that such a jammer can be obtained for less than $100....

But there is a bright spot: this decline is happening at a slower rate on indigenous peoples’ lands, according to the report, which was compiled by a panel called the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Its authors and other conservation experts say the world should not only draw lessons from those and other local communities’ environmental stewardship but that scientists and policy makers need to support and partner with them in order to stem the tide of biodiversity loss....

Lena and Saheed have never met; they probably never will. Lena lives in 2050 Leipzig, a placid and historic German city of middle-aged professionals. At 51, she is midway through a career as a pharmacist, with retirement more than two decades away. She and her husband no longer have to support their only child, a daughter who has graduated from college, but they worry about caring for their aging parents, who are in fairly good health in their 80s and 90s....

We all have that friend who survives on beer and barbecue and somehow stays slim. Our weight—though of course influenced by factors such as diet and exercise—can be frustratingly genetic. Scads of gene variants, differences in single letters of the genetic code, have been associated with being overweight. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute have now developed a scoring system they believe can reliably predict people’s obesity risk through life based on their genome....

Most people prize their individuality yet hold a relatively rigid view about what constitutes a healthy diet. But new research indicates that a nutritious diet for one person may be less so for another. Scientists in the emerging field of personalized nutrition are decoding the cellular and molecular impact of diet on individual health, and they’re finding that food is more than simple sustenance. Its ingredients and nutrients can be customized to support a diet that helps prevent or treat diseases such obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease....

The home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, is getting a new machine — and this time, the whole point is to keep it small. On September 18, the council that governs CERN, Europe’s premier particle-physics laboratory, near Geneva, Switzerland, approved a boost in funding for a planned experiment called the Advanced Wakefield Experiment, or AWAKE. Due to switch on next year, AWAKE will accelerate particles by ‘surfing’ them on waves of electric charge created in a plasma, or ionized gas....

Watching how black characters are treated on television can affect attitudes about race both consciously and unconsciously, new findings suggest. In a two-part study, researchers at Tufts University examined nonverbal behavior toward characters of different races on television shows, then tested how clips from these shows affected viewers’ prejudices. First, the team found clips of mixed-race scenes from 11 popular TV shows with prominent black and white characters. In each clip, they blocked out one character to hide his or her race, turned off the sound, then asked volunteers whether the blocked-out character was seen by the other characters in a positive or negative light....

By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) - Seniors admitted to the hospital intensive care unit (ICU) were more likely to die or sharply decline soon after their release depending on how well they functioned beforehand, according to a new study. “Providers can really help categorize people . . . and give them advice on what their ICU experience might be like,” said lead author Dr. Lauren E. Ferrante of Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut....

Binge-shoppers and serial daters might perpetually be living at the whim of their latest impulse, and now research is getting to the biological basis of their seemingly random behavior. “Individuals vary widely in their capacity to deliberate on the potential consequences of their choices before they act,” note the authors of a new study on the impulsive tendency. “Highly impulsive people frequently make rash, destructive decisions.” Impulsivity has long been linked to the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is involved in learning and reward....

Students studying to become physicians were sent home as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened. Just as many of them were about to begin new medical careers, they found themselves on the sidelines during the most significant health crisis in their lifetime. That time off has not been passed binge-watching Tiger King, however. Some students have volunteered to staff coronavirus hotlines or to organize food deliveries. And one group of 30 Harvard Medical School students took a different—and extremely ambitious—approach: during the week of March 15, they worked day and night for 72 hours to devise, from scratch, a new university curriculum focused on COVID-19....

Although many of the Pacific Ocean’s big species are floundering, one large creature of the deep seems to be flourishing. The Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas, also known as jumbo squid, owing to its sizable nature) has been steadily expanding its population and range: whereas sightings north of San Diego were rare 10 years ago, the squid are now found as far north as Alaska. Many researchers attribute the squid’s recent success to the very climate, current and oxygen-level changes that have been hurting populations of other species in the diverse California Current....

During Tom Frieden’s seven and a half years as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his agency was buffeted by crises that included government furloughs, H1N1 flu, laboratory safety issues, an earthquake in Haiti, and outbreaks of Ebola and Zika virus. To better manage emerging diseases—and to detect them before they spread globally—the agency is now working with dozens of countries to boost diagnostic and testing capabilities....

Last year’s devastating flooding in New York City from Hurricane Sandy was the city’s largest storm surge on record. Though Hurricane Sandy was considered a 100-year-event — a storm that lashes a region only once a century — a new study finds global warming could bring similar destructive storm surges to the Gulf and East Coasts of the United States every other year before 2100. Severe storms generate both high waves and storm surge, which can combine to erode beaches and dunes and flood coastal communities....

Although the stories told by Pixar Animation Studios take place in richly realized fantasy realms, the science and technology required to create those worlds have distinctly real-world origins. For Cars 2, set for release in late June, the minds behind such films as Toy Story, Up and WALL-E had to study the complex ways in which light reflects off cars. The movie leaves behind the sleepy desert town setting of the original and takes place in the world of in­ternational racing, which meant having to depict many cars moving through varied tracks and racing surfaces....

Globally, more than four billion people use social media, generating huge stores of data from their devices. That information can be used in tracking more than just what they buy, their political leanings or the patterns of social media usage during the pandemic. It can also be channeled to help better detect mental illness and improve well-being. A growing number of studies show that language patterns and images in posts can reveal and predict mental health conditions for individuals and also evaluate mental health trends across entire populations....

We all experience the occasional life-changing event—a new baby, a cross-country move, a serious injury. In rare cases, such events can precipitate a mental disorder. The problem is compounded because people often assume their suffering is par for the course after such upheaval. In reality, relief is probably a short treatment away, via therapy or medication. For a new mother, dealing with a newborn is fraught with anxieties. Did I fasten the car seat properly?...

WASHINGTON — Republicans are intent on repealing a public health fund created by the Affordable Care Act — but with President Trump also pursuing a dramatic reduction in domestic spending, lawmakers admit they don’t know if they could make up the losses at one of the nation’s most critical health agencies. The latest version of the GOP health care bill would end the law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides nearly $1 billion annually, in 2019....

The first symptoms often appear a month or two after birth. The babies’ muscles stiffen. They lose their hearing and vision, stop sleeping and scream in pain. Some develop seizures. By the time many parents learn that their children have Krabbe disease—a rare genetic disorder that degrades nerve cells—it is too late for the only viable treatment, a transfusion of umbilical cord blood stem cells from healthy donors. Children with full-blown Krabbe who do not receive medical treatment, as well as many who do get treated, usually die by age two....