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Loss of ice cover in the Arctic could spur more droughts in California, according to a new study by federal researchers. The study, published today in Nature Communications, finds that sea-ice loss in the Arctic could trigger atmospheric effects that drive precipitation away from California. The research was led by atmospheric scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It’s the same kind of effect that contributed to state’s historic dry period that ended last year....

In an unusual move for a sitting president, Barack Obama has published a scholarly paper in a scientific journal. The paper, which discusses the success and future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), was published Monday (July 11)in the prestigious medical journal JAMA. It may be the first time a sitting president has authored a complete academic article — with an abstract, findings and conclusions — that’s been published in a scientific journal, at least in recent history....

The month of May marks the release of the DSM-5, the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s best-selling Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Because most insurance providers require a DSM diagnosis as a prerequisite for paying for treatment, the changes in the manual will affect health care for millions of Americans. Here are a few of the major revisions. New Additions Hoarding. No longer just a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder, research has revealed that the inability to throw away useless items is a malady in its own right....

Quantum computers get all the hype, but quantum sensors could be equally transformative, enabling autonomous vehicles that can “see” around corners, underwater navigation systems, early-warning systems for volcanic activity and earthquakes, and portable scanners that monitor a person’s brain activity during daily life. Quantum sensors reach extreme levels of precision by exploiting the quantum nature of matter—using the difference between, for example, electrons in different energy states as a base unit....

Robots are a growing presence in operating rooms throughout the U.S. as surgeons embrace the technology to help them remove damaged organs or cancerous tissue. These systems have improved greatly in recent years but still need hands-on surgeons to guide their instruments and make critical decisions. Turning a robot loose on its own to cut and sew delicate tissue inside a human body would be a massively complex undertaking requiring advanced imaging, sensor and artificial intelligence technologies—not to mention a lot more acceptance from the medical community and federal regulators....

A new sea is forming in the desert of northeastern Ethiopia. Millions of years from now, the pulling apart of the Arabian and Nubian tectonic plates will allow waters to rush in and widen the Red Sea. And thanks to the availability of satellite imagery, scientists have been able to get an unprecedented glimpse of the workings of stretching plates, the rock crust moving across Earths surface at up to 12 centimeters per year....

Scalloped hammerhead sharks have became the first species of shark to be protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act, one of the world’s strongest wildlife conservation laws. The final rule to list four of the existing six distinct population segments of scalloped hammerhead sharks as threatened (Indo-West Pacific DPS and Central/SW Atlantic DPS) or endangered (Eastern Atlantic DPS and Eastern Pacific DPS) was published [pdf] on July 3 by the National Marine Fisheries Service....

In 1922 Scientific American announced a high-stakes international contest to find scientific proof of ghosts. The competition offered $5,000,and it pitted top scientists of the day against wildly popular psychic mediums. The contest also escalated a growing feud between two famous friends: renowned magician and escape artist Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. The magazine’s interest in the afterlife was not so much an anomaly but a product of the time....

New parents love the developmental milestones – the first smile, crab-like crawl, and “ma-ma-ma” are unforgettable. Around their first birthday, babies start pointing, a communicative gesture that is universally, and uniquely, understood by humans. More than ever before, parents have insight into precisely what their babies are interested in; Oh, you want the Snoopy doll next to the book? Sure, here you go. But, what if babies are communicating with us about objects even earlier?...

Tropical forests are adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than they’re removing, according to a new study that estimates the world’s lush canopies emit more CO2 than all of America’s cars and trucks. The silver lining, the researchers say, is that tropical forests have untapped potential to act as carbon sinks through better conservation and land management. Historically, scientists have underestimated forest emissions by focusing mostly on clearcutting, big fires and other overt deforestation, said Wayne Walker, one of the report’s authors and an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, a climate change think tank....

Dear President Trump and members of Congress: As you took office in January, you came face-to-face with pressing problems involving science, medicine and technology that directly affect our country’s health, wealth and security. They have often been ignored by your predecessors or simply “kicked down the road” in a meaningless way. Your critics fear that you will do something more dangerous: not simply defer crucial decisions but actively promote policies that ignore overwhelming scientific evidence about climate change, vaccines, national security and other issues....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. In medicine, we speak of “seeing patients” when we are rounding in the hospital or caring for those who come to our clinics. But what about those people who may be sick but do not seek care? What is our responsibility to the patients we do not see? This question takes on greater urgency in the current political climate, as patients face the threat of losing health insurance....

No plan to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions can succeed through increases in energy efficiency alone. Because economic growth continues to boost the demand for energy– more coal for powering new factories, more oil for fueling new cars, more natural gas for heating new homes–carbon emissions will keep climbing despite the introduction of more energy-efficient vehicles, buildings and appliances. To counter the alarming trend of global warming, the U.S. and other countries must make a major commitment to developing renewable energy sources that generate little or no carbon....

Love bites on the neck of the young female Tas­manian devil in my lap tell me she has recently had a sexual encounter. They also indicate something ominous: she might well be dead before she can raise her first litter of pups. I (Jones) am sitting on the ground holding a devil that I trapped in Freycinet National Park on the eastern coast of Tasmania—a wild jewel of an island to the south of the mainland of Australia....

POLOCHIC VALLEY, GUATEMALA—Echoes from armed raids still seem to resound in this valley, eight hours north of the capital city. In early 2011 military and paramilitary forces forcibly evicted 13 communities of indigenous Mayan peasants—some 300 families were dispossessed of disputed land they had been living on for three years to secure the property rights of one powerful local family, the Widmanns, and its agribusiness company Chabil Utzaj. “They came in great numbers and heavily armed,” says 18-year-old Tecla Kuxh while holding her one-year-old infant, via a translator....

They weren’t entirely wrong. The paiche is carnivorous—although it eats other fishes, not humans. And it did enter Bolivia from Peru, where it had been added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species index in 1975 as a species prone to extinction if trade was not closely controlled. A few years later a flood washed juveniles out of a Peruvian fish farm near the border into Bolivia’s watershed. By the time Bolivian fishermen noticed the strange creature, it was already established in the oxbow lakes and seasonal lagoons that dot the forest....

By Meredith Wadman of Nature magazine Senior officials at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have concluded that a major chimpanzee research centre did not violate the biomedical agency’s breeding moratorium, despite 130 infants being born at the centre to NIH-owned parents between 2000 and 2010 (see ‘Lab bred chimps despite ban’). The assessment, carried out by the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research and obtained by Nature under the US Freedom of Information Act, argues that the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC), part of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, did not violate the 17-year-old moratorium for two reasons....

By Bill Berkrot (Reuters) - Researchers believe they have discovered a mechanism by which tumors eventually evade effective combination treatments for melanoma, providing clues that could lead to longer-lasting therapies for the deadliest of skin cancers. The two-year study, led by Dr. Roger Lo of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, looked at tumor samples from 15 melanoma patients prior to therapy that combined a BRAF inhibitor with an MEK inhibitor and after they developed resistance to the drugs....

Nothing beats a supportive group to jump-start your own thinking. On a recent Thursday I was suffering from a lack of inspiration, so I reached out to Scientific American Mind’s followers on Twitter and Facebook to ask them what they most wanted to learn about the mind and brain. Three hours later I had a list of story ideas that could fill the magazine for an entire year. One of those suggestions—how social groups shape the mind—dovetails with this issue’s cover story, “Creativity Is Collective....

IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN. In the 1970s, when oil prices soared, Americans started pursuing alternative energy technologies. But when prices subsequently dropped, so did the promising projects. As recently as six months ago consumers, CEOs and politicians were hell-bent for green technologies, but then the recession worsened, oil prices plummeted and calls rose to postpone clean tech options. Begging off now would be a terrible waste. In an incredibly short time, impressive business, technological and political gains have been made....