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By tracking the voyages of elephant seals off Antarctica, and with the help of satellite imaging and undersea sensors, researchers have discovered a long-elusive source for the deep-ocean streams of cold water that help to regulate the Earth’s climate. Antarctic bottom water (AABW) is cold, highly saline water that forms near the shores of Antarctica. Being denser than typical seawater, it sinks to the depths and then moves north in sluggish currents that spread across the globe....

In a harrowing video that surfaced last month, a 68-year-old hospital patient attacks a group of nurses with a pipe pulled from his bed. They flee through a nearby door in a streak of rainbow scrubs, but the patient pursues and lands several more blows on one fallen nurse in the hallway. This assault is far from an isolated incident. Health-care workers are hit, kicked, scratched, bitten, spat on, threatened and harassed by patients with surprising regularity....

CHINA A chemical that helped to create a hole in the ozone layer is reappearing. An international investigation traced the resurgence of the banned gas, known as CFC-11, to factories in a town in the eastern province of Shandong. CHILE The National Congress of Chile passed a bill outlining plans to establish a ministry of science. The goal is to invest more in research, as part of a shift toward an economy of “knowledge and creativity....

When Cynthia Bulik started studying eating disorders back in the early 1980s, what she read in the scientific literature clashed with what she saw in the clinic. At the time, theories about the causes of these conditions were focused primarily on explanations based on family dynamics and sociocultural factors. These descriptions could not explain how, despite dangerously low body weights, patients with eating disorders were often “hyperactive and said they felt well, and only started feeling poorly when we nourished them,” says Bulik, who is currently a professor at both the University of North Carolina and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden....

In 1912 neuroscientist Fritz Jacob Lewy published the first of three studies on structures he had identified in brains of people with “paralysis agitans.” The condition came to be known more commonly as Parkinson’s disease, and the structures Lewy identified were somewhat controversially named “Lewy bodies.” He was so passionate about the discovery of these epononymous “bodies”—neuron-destroying tangles of a protein called alpha-synuclein—that he published a hefty tome in 1923 detailing his findings at levels of brain structure ranging from macro to microscopic....

After devastating India’s cities, COVID-19 is now ravaging the country’s hinterlands. Over half the new infections and deaths in the country are being reported from rural areas. In the small village of Shertha in the western Indian state of Gujarat, for instance, 64 persons lost their lives this April, many because they failed to access timely medical care and essential supplies like oxygen. When villagers summoned an ambulance through a state-run helpline, it typically took three days to arrive; at times, its siren was heard long after the patient was dead....

California coastal cities should be prepared for the possibility that oceans will rise more than 10 feet by 2100 and submerge parts of beach towns, the state Coastal Commission warns in new draft guidance. The powerful agency, which oversees most development along 1,100 miles of coast, will consider approving the guidance this fall. A staff report recommending the changes was released last week. Earlier commission guidance put top sea-level rise at 6 feet by 2100....

Whenever you get around to doing dishes, how easily water slides down a dirty plate depends on how uneven and crusty the plate’s surface is. At the nanoscale, however, where surface features can be hundreds of thousands of times smaller than the average width of a human hair, water can experience friction even on surfaces that seem perfectly smooth. Consider, for instance, the puzzling case of carbon nanotubes: Experiments have shown that, against common sense, the narrower these minuscule pipes are, the less friction water “feels” within them, and the faster the resulting flow....

The birth of Dolly the sheep 20 years ago proved that DNA from an adult cell of a mammal could be transferred to an unfertilized egg and give rise to an animal genetically identical to the donor. Yet Dolly died prematurely, which left the impression that cloned animals have shorter life spans. To figure out if clones are inherently less healthy than their “natural” counterparts, University of Nottingham developmental biologist Kevin Sinclair followed four of Dolly’s clones—Debbie, Denise, Dianna and Daisy (above)—from birth through middle age....

The invasion of frigid Arctic air began on Monday, when temperatures began plummeting, first across the Northern Plains, and then bleeding southward as the Arctic air plowed over the landscape. The event led to some pretty wild temperature swings — Denver saw the mercury drop more than 40°F in a matter of hours — and to some stark weather maps and photos. Here, we’ve rounded up some of the most arresting images of this unusual weather pattern....

The late computer scientist Claude Shannon has a well-deserved reputation as the father of information theory, but he was also an avid unicyclist, juggler and tinkerer. He even built his own robotic juggling machine out of parts from an Erector set, programming it to juggle three metal balls by bouncing them against a drum. In the early 1980s, Shannon published the first formal mathematical theorem of juggling, correlating the length of time balls are in the air with how long each ball stays in the juggler’s hand....

President Joe Biden’s recent bout of COVID drew immediate comparisons with President Donald Trump’s experience. Biden had mild symptoms and worked at his desk, while Trump developed a severe respiratory condition requiring helicopter evacuation and three days of urgent treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The experiences of these two men reflect changes in COVID risk that actually impact all of us. Although the administration designed procedures to protect Biden, his aides viewed his infection as a near inevitability....

The Boston piano bar where Edward Nardell sings cabaret songs would typically be an ideal setting for airborne diseases to spread. But Nardell and his audience are protected from the COVID-19 pandemic by the far-ultraviolet (UV) lights that he had installed to shine down from the ceiling. Far UV is an emerging form of germicidal UV (GUV) irradiation, a well-established disinfection technology and growing resource in the battle against the virus SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens that can spread easily through the air in enclosed spaces....

Before kindergarten, I was already dreaming about the wonders of interstellar space travel. I saw the Apollo astronauts walk on the moon and enjoyed the weekly exploits of the crew of the Enterprise on the original Star Trek TV episodes. It seemed we’d soon be leaping into that “final frontier.” But the adult me now knows a lot more about how hard it is to explore the cold vastness of space—even if we’re doing so with machines instead of us fragile humans....

Ebola outbreaks in the past few decades have consistently “burned out” in relatively isolated and rural areas in central Africa where ill patients did not come into contact with many individuals. Without new patients to infect, the virus eventually had nowhere to go. The current outbreak in west Africa, however—taking place at the intersection of several countries’ porous borders—helped this outbreak boom into an epidemic which has a global reach. What will it take to quash the ongoing Ebola epidemic and keep it from becoming part of the fabric of life in west Africa?...

Kevin Langdon was writing several books and designing an inside-out clock. Karyn Huntting Peters was organizing a global problem-solving network. Alfred Simpson juggled multiple Web-programming projects in his free time. These three people might not have had much in common—except for their unusually high IQs. All three belong to exclusive high-IQ societies. Mensa International, whose members’ test scores must land above the 98th percentile (or one in 50), may be the most popular, but it is just one option for the discerning test taker....

A vast amount of water is used to produce the food and products that nations consume. Large population is the greatest factor, but inefficient agriculture or dependence on water-intensive cuisine can exacerbate demand; meat consumption accounts for 30 percent of the U.S. water footprint. Certain countries, such as India and the U.S., also export significant quantities of water in the form of food and products, despite their own robust consumption. Populous nations that have little land or little water are huge net importers....

LONDON (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is to launch a pilot project this year to assess cheap copies of expensive biotech cancer drugs in a bid to make such medicines more widely available in poorer countries. The U.N. agency said on Thursday it would invite drugmakers in September to submit applications for prequalification of so-called biosimilar versions of two such drugs on its essential medicines list, Roche’s Rituxan and Herceptin....

If Republicans are preparing to launch an offensive against the historic climate change agreement the Obama administration struck in Paris last month, they’re being awfully quiet about it. While die-hard congressional opponents of President Obama’s climate policies did respond to the mid-December news that nearly 200 nations had accepted a long-sought deal, those statements were fewer and less vitriolic than expected—especially considering that the White House was claiming the accord as a cornerstone of the president’s climate legacy....

What is your vision?” It was 2009, and my new boss, Steven Inchcoombe, had just inspired me with the most wonderful invitation. I was executive editor of Scientific American at the time, and what did I want to do if I could earn the privilege of becoming editor in chief? In my mind’s eye, the future opened before me. What did Scientific American need to become now that it had not been in the past, and how could it do that?...