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SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. In case you have not heard, the ocean is not doing so well. In fact, it is in a state of crisis. It is being assaulted physically, chemically and biologically—making it warmer, more acidic and polluted. It has been overfished to the point that many fisheries are on the brink of collapse. As a result of these changes, weather patterns have changed, coral reefs are dying and species are becoming extinct....

April 1965 An Economic Model “Further development of input-output analysis and the realization of its potentialities for informed and rational decision-making at all levels of economic life call for detailed and more up-to-date tables. Comparison of the 1947 and 1958 input-output tables for the U.S. economy indicates significant changes in the input-output coefficients arising from technological innovation. Work has now begun on the preparation of an input-output table for the U....

Key concepts Physics Sound wave Frequency Pitch Hertz Introduction Can you name the bestselling musical instrument in the world? If you said…harmonica, you’re right! The harmonica was patented in 1821 by a 16-year-old German boy. Since then it’s become the top selling instrument in the world and a household item in many places. It’s easy to take instruments (and the music they make) for granted, but creating beautiful noise is not just an art—it’s also a science!...

How can we cope with global warming and the challenges it poses? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just completed its fourth assessment of the science of climate change, its impacts and possible solutions. The panel of 2,500 scientists and other experts declared manmade warming “unequivocal” and wrote that it could lead to climate changes that are “abrupt and irreversible.” Next week the world’s governments are set to gather in Bali to begin negotiating an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will succeed the much-debated Kyoto Protocol....

In November and December of 2020, with COVID cases rising across the nation, state and city leaders across the U.S. imposed restrictions to curb the spread ahead of the holiday season. The Centers for Disease Control even recommended that people stay home. Despite these warnings, over six million Americans traveled by air the week of Thanksgiving, and an additional 14 million traveled by air the week of Christmas and New Year’s, according to the U....

How much warming will greenhouse gas emissions cause in the coming years? It’s one of the most fundamental questions about climate change—and also one of the trickiest to answer. Now, a major study claims to have narrowed down the range of possible estimates. It presents both good and bad news. The worst-case climate scenarios may be somewhat less likely than previous studies suggested. But the best-case climate scenarios—those assuming the least amount of warming—are almost certainly not going to happen....

Editor’s Note (3/30/16): The maps below are no longer being updated. Their last update on March 22 reflected additional confirmed cases in the U.S. and their countries of origin. For the latest official count on travel-related cases of Zika in the U.S. (their countries of origin are not included) please refer to the CDC’s tracking here. Zika is not new to the U.S. Even as early as 2007, when the mosquito-borne disease had its first large outbreak in the Pacific island nation of Micronesia, the virus directly touched the U....

This week, after the Trump administration placed restrictions on several federal agencies regarding communication with the public, self-described “rogue” versions of government science institutions cropped up on Twitter, defiantly sharing their support of science. The account AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) launched Jan. 24, calling itself “The Unofficial #Resistance team of U.S. National Park Service” in a Twitter bio. Its tweets share facts related to climate changeand its impact on U.S. national parks — and on the planet — and call for more rigorous government support of science-based policies related to the environment....

Many studies suggest that our personalities remain fairly stable, even over the course of decades. Yet a small but long-running study finds that traits related to dependability differ substantially between adolescence and late life. The findings raise new questions and highlight the challenges inherent in trying to track a person’s defining characteristics over many years. In the new research, published in December 2016 in Psychology and Aging, researchers in the U....

One overcast Sunday morning in 1996, Jeffrey Meldrum and his brother drove to Walla Walla, Wash., to see if they could find Paul Freeman, a man renowned in Bigfoot circles as a source of footprint casts. Meldrum—who has followed Bigfoot lore since he was a boy—had heard that Freeman was a hoaxer, “so I was very dubious,” he recalls. The brothers arrived unannounced, Meldrum says, and chatted with Freeman about his collection....

Democrats on both sides of Capitol Hill are pushing to add climate change provisions to the third aid package for people and industries affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it’s unclear whether they have the political leverage to make those ideas stick—at least not yet. The Democratic proposals touch on two main areas. Several Senate Democrats want airlines to reduce their carbon emissions in exchange for federal aid that could hit $50 billion or more....

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A bird that once darkened the skies of the 19th-century U.S. no longer exists, except as well-preserved museum specimens bearing bits of DNA. An ambitious new effort aims to use the latest techniques of genetic manipulation to bring the passenger pigeon back, as North Dakotan Ben Novak, a would-be de-extinction scientist working on the Revive & Restore project at the Long Now Foundation, told the crowd at the TEDxDeExtinction event here on March 15....

U.S. EPA is working to issue replacement rules for Bush-era regulations aimed at slashing power plant emissions of soot, smog and mercury as quickly as possible, the agency’s top air official told a Senate panel today. Gina McCarthy, EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation, said the agency plans to propose a replacement for the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) in early 2010 and to issue a final rule by early 2011....

Medical historian Dr. Howard Markel revisits moments that changed the course of modern medicine. The place: The Eagle, a genial pub and favorite luncheon spot for the staff, students and researchers working at the University of Cambridge’s old Cavendish laboratory on nearby Free School Lane. The date: Feb. 28, 1953, a day when real, honest-to-goodness history was made. The time: 12 noon. Two men entered the noisy pub to create even more noise....

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy among women and, after lung cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in North America. Yet unlike the survival rate for individuals diagnosed with lung cancer, the rate for women diagnosed with breast cancer has been rising dramatically over the past decade—to the point where breast cancer could soon lose its ranking as the second-greatest cancer killer. Nothing would delight clinicians like us more....

One chemical alone may do no harm in low doses, but in conjunction with a few of its peers, even in doses that are individually safe, it can inflict serious harm. New research in frogs shows that a mixture of nine chemicals found in a seed-corn field in York County, Nebraska, killed a third of exposed tadpoles and lengthened time to metamorphosis by more than two weeks for the survivors....

On the other side of the sun, an interplanetary heist is afoot. Next week NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will make a daring attempt to steal samples from the surface of an asteroid, dodging giant boulders and other hazards in the process. If all goes well, it will then make the long journey back home, returning the largest amount of extraterrestrial material to Earth from a nonlunar mission in history. Its precious cargo of otherworldly rocks could hold answers to long-standing questions about our cosmic origins....

The official name of the illness is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but in the U.S. it is better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The great New York Yankees first baseman was diagnosed with ALS in 1939 and died two years later from the progressive neuromuscular disorder, which attacks nerve cells that lead from the brain and the spinal cord to muscles throughout the body. When these motor neurons die, the brain can no longer control muscle movements; in the later stages of the disease, patients become totally paralyzed....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Postpartum depression has become more visible as celebrity moms including Brooke Shields, Drew Barrymore and Chrissy Teigen have publicly shared their struggles with feeling sad and hopeless after birth. But when a father – Adam Busby, from reality TV show “OutDaughtered” – recently opened up about his own postpartum depression, he received instant backlash, including comments telling him to “man up....

You probably know the GIF as the perfect vehicle for sharing memes and reactions. We believe the format can go further, that it has real power to capture science and explain research in short, digestible loops. So kick off your week right with this GIF-able science. Enjoy and loop on. This Ancient Shark Really Sucked Credit: Kristen Tietjen University of Chicago Evolutionary science is full of contests that carry strange bragging rights....