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Every now and then during the workweek—usually around three in the afternoon—a familiar ache begins to saturate my forehead and pool in my temples. The glare of my computer screen appears to suddenly intensify. My eyes trace the contour of the same sentence two or three times, yet I fail to extract its meaning. Even if I began the day undaunted, getting through my ever growing list of stories to write and edit, e-mails to send and respond to, and documents to read now seems as futile as scaling a mountain that continuously thrusts new stone skyward....

About a year after the Liverpool event, Panos Moutafis, CEO of Austin, Tex.–based Zenus, the company behind the technology, was still excited about the results. “I haven’t seen lots of commercial systems getting this level of accuracy,” he said to me during a video call, showing me a photograph of the crowd, the faces outlined with boxes. Zenus engineers had trained the system to recognize emotions by having it examine a huge data set of facial expressions with labels describing relevant feelings....

What to expect at Apple’s October 22 event Next week is Apple’s big chance to show off what’s expected to be the last batch of products for the year. A little more than a month after releasing its latest pair of iPhones, Tuesday’s event should bring new versions of the iPad, as well as updated Macs and a price and release date for OS X Mavericks. That’s almost exactly what happened this time last year, when Apple took the wraps off the iPad Mini....

When food prices rose steeply in 2007 and climaxed in the winter of 2008, politicians and the press decried the impact on the billion or so people who were already going hungry. Excellent growing weather and good harvests provided temporary relief, but prices have once again soared to record heights. This time around people are paying less attention. The public has a short attention span regarding problems of the world’s have-nots, but experts are partly to blame, too....

Five U.S. B-52 bombers were conducting a training mission on March 28 high over the Norwegian Sea in the Arctic Ocean. F-16 fighter jets from Norway were also aloft, part of joint NATO exercises involving 10,000 troops in northern Sweden. Unexpectedly, two Russian Tu-160 bombers crossed into the same airspace. Surprised, Norway scrambled the F-16s to follow the interlopers. The Tu-160s continued toward the U.K., then circled back home, but their appearance was worrisome....

Black children with high levels of hormone-altering chemicals used in some shampoos and lotions are more likely to be obese, according to research published today. The study by New York University scientists is the second to link phthalates to obesity in children but the first to use a large sample of children and look for racial disparities. Black children have much higher levels of the chemicals in their bodies than children of other races, and for every tripling of certain compounds, they were 22 percent more likely to be obese, according to data from 2,884 children aged 6 to 19....

For weeks, officials have searched for what could be causing a string of vaping-related respiratory illnesses across the country. Now, they may have found a clue: Many of the products used by the patients contained a common contaminant—an oil derived from vitamin E, according to news reports. The news of the contaminant comes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which shared the information with state officials in a telephone briefing this week, The Washington Post reported....

By David CyranoskiIt seemed like an open-and-shut case. In May, two months after the South Korean warship Cheonan suddenly sank in the Yellow Sea, the country released the findings of its investigation, blaming a torpedo attack by its northern neighbor.The evidence included a smoking gun: parts of a torpedo found near the ship had the same dimensions as those in North Korean munitions pamphlets, and ink marks identified the torpedo as North Korean....

On a September afternoon in Tabasco in southern Mexico, the two of us made our way through the rain forest toward the sound of flowing water, in pursuit of a small but important fish. Iridescent blue morpho butterflies flitted by, and howler monkeys roared from the trees overhead, offering welcome distractions from the broiling heat and humidity. Soon we spotted a green kingfisher diving into the nearby creek and then returning to its perch to consume its catch....

In a certain corner of the alternative health movement, fueled by celebrity buzz, it’s become en vogue for new mothers to consume their placentas after giving birth. Companies have sprouted up offering to turn placentas into smoothies, truffles, and freeze-dried pills, claiming that placental eating—practiced by many mammal species—can give recovering moms a boost of vitamins and nutrients, and help prevent postpartum depression. Evidence, however, is lacking that it has any health benefit for human moms or babies....

The landing of the Curiosity rover was a huge hit for nasa in the summer of 2012. Now the space agency is letting its winnings ride with another bet on Mars. Last December, NASA announced plans to send a similar rover to the Red Planet in 2020—its seventh planned or active Mars mission—citing the low risk and cost savings of a mission reboot. NASA’s fixation on Mars (or on avoiding risks) comes at the expense of the rest of the solar system....

Nearly 20 years ago a small study advanced the notion that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long before trademarked “Mozart effect” products appealed to neurotic parents aiming to put toddlers on the fast track to the Ivy League. Georgia’s governor even proposed giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette. The evidence for Mozart therapy turned out to be flimsy, perhaps nonexistent, although the original study never claimed anything more than a temporary and limited effect....

Editor’s note: From Newton’s Football: The Science Behind America’s Game by Allen St. John and Ainissa G. Ramirez Ph.D. Copyright (c) 2013 by Allen St. John and Ainissa G. Ramirez, Ph.D. Reprinted by arrangement with Random House. All rights reserved. How is a quarterback’s progression like a spreadsheet on your laptop? They’re both powered by binary language. That’s when a complex problem is reduced to a series of simpler questions that offer only two mutually exclusive options....

As the U.S. Civil War raged on, Scientific American devoted much space to covering the military news. We also devoted space to our bread-and-butter business back then, inventions, including those designed for use in the war. War is a lot about attack and defense; it is also about supplying all of the needs of the armies and navies and countries that are attempting to wage war more effectively than the adversary....

The cover story for October 2004, “Controlling Hurricanes,” could not have been more timely, coming out as Florida suffered devastating visits from four major hurricanes. Many readers drew hope from the possibility of either dissipating or diverting these storms. Others offered a slew of their own ideas on how to accomplish such a feat, whose success could be considered a step toward the ultimate accomplishment in humanity’s age-old drive to tame the environment–controlling the weather....

Everyday Psychopaths: Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight M. E. Thomas Crown, 2013 ($25)Most of us don a poker face at one time or another to hide our emotional fragility. Sociopaths, a group that encompasses 1 to 4 percent of the population, may not require such a mask, because many of them do not experience intense emotions. This character quirk does not make sociopaths dangerous criminals, despite their reputation....

Enas Salameh, a 24-year-old college graduate living in the Palestinian West Bank city of Jenin, needed a job this summer. But her family finds it unacceptable for a woman to venture alone into the city without a male companion or an appointment. Fortunately, it’s fine to use a mobile phone. In fact, although only 16 percent of Palestinian households have Internet access, 81 percent have a cell phone, according to a 2009 United Nations report....

Our eyes swivel restlessly in their sockets during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep—a phenomenon that has escaped explanation for decades. Research has suggested several possibilities: the eyes roll around to lubricate the inside of the eyelids; eyes jiggle to warm the brain; eyes twitch in response to stimulation from the brain stem. According to a study in the June issue of Brain, the most likely explanation is that our eyes orient their gaze to scan the imagery of our dreams—just as eyes change their gaze in response to our environment when we are awake and moving around....

This story was first published on Mongabay.com as part of its Latin American Wildlife Trade series. Corsino Huallata Ibarra was helping his parents round up their herd of llamas at their home in the Bolivian countryside when the sound of gunshots made him jump. Scanning the horizon, distant movement caught his eye. He could just make out the forms of several vicuñas—alpaca-like animals whose wool is some of the finest and most expensive in the world—seemingly fleeing from something....

A 35-year trend of researchers reading ever more scholarly papers seems to have halted. In 2012, US scientists and social scientists estimated that they read, on average, 22 scholarly articles per month (or 264 per year), fewer than the 27 that they reported in an identical survey last conducted in 2005. It is the first time since the reading-habit questionnaire began in 1977 that manuscript consumption has dropped. “People have probably hit the limit of the time they have available to read articles,” says information scientist Carol Tenopir, who led the study....