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According to Dorothy, “there’s no place like home.” A new report suggests that for fish, no place sounds like home. Findings published today in the journal Science indicate that young fish, which can float out to sea during their larval stage, use sounds emanating from coral reefs to find their way back. Activities such as grinding fish teeth and snapping shrimp claws contribute to the din surrounding a coral reef, which can often be heard from distances up to a few kilometers away....

MANTOLOKING, N.J.—There’s no light or heat on this strip of island shaped like a spaghetti strand six weeks after Superstorm Sandy sliced it into a string of shortened noodles with a burst of seawater that residents say hit their town (population 296) like a small tidal wave. But other progress is happening fast, like changing people’s minds about the need for a big sand wall to protect them from the ocean....

Researcher Han Lin holds his wafer-thin 3D printed battery. Credit: Swinburne University Swinburne University of Technology researchers have developed a method for 3D printing a powerful battery that charges in seconds, can be recharged millions of times – and would barely be noticeable, laced inside your watchband. The magic ingredient is called graphene — a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with an extremely large surface area that allows a huge amount of charge to attach to its surface....

This article is a supplement to the feature “The Cosmic Origin of Time Arrow: Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?” from the June 2008 issue of Scientific American. Here is a timeline of important events in the history of our observable universe, according to conventional cosmology: Space is empty, featuring nothing but a tiny amount of vacuum energy and an occasional long-wavelength particle formed via fluctuations of the quantum fields that suffuse space....

Botswana’s diamond mining sector accounts for 31 percent of the country’s economic output – and a glistening De Beers five-diamond bracelet sells online for $1,500. But how much does depleting diamond mines cut into Botswana’s overall economic health? The Philippines’ untapped gold and nickel is valued at nearly $1 trillion, but the mines and refining process needed to tap them will require a great deal of water. If climate change leads to reduced rainfall in the country, how much would be lost by diverting water from agriculture?...

Rail experts say an automated safety system already in place in Europe, but stalled in the U.S. despite a Congressional mandate, probably could have prevented a speeding commuter train from flying off the tracks while rounding a bend last weekend in New York City, killing four passengers and injuring 63 others. Although the official cause of the December 1 accident in the Bronx has not yet been determined, investigators do know that the Metro-North train was traveling 82 miles per hour on a curve restricted to speeds of 30 miles per hour—precisely the kind of dangerous situation that the new technology, known as positive train control, is designed to prevent....

On Monday, Dr. Michio Hirano, a neurologist at Columbia University, will evaluate 11-month old Charlie Gard, the British boy who is on life support because of a rare, lethal disease called mitochondrial depletion syndrome. Charlie is at the center of a fraught legal case in the U.K. concerning whether his parents can take him abroad to receive experimental treatment. Doctors at the hospital treating Charlie have said that every medical treatment option has already been explored, and have advised against transferring him abroad....

For most people, the great mystery of time is that there never seems to be enough of it. If it is any consolation, physicists are having much the same problem. The laws of physics contain a time variable, but it fails to capture key aspects of time as we live it–notably, the distinction between past and future. And as researchers try to formulate more fundamental laws, the little t evaporates altogether....

The universe has no center and no edge, no special regions tucked in among the galaxies and light. No matter where you look, it’s the same—or so physicists thought. This cosmological principle—one of the foundations of the modern understanding of the universe—has come into question recently as astronomers find evidence, subtle but growing, of a special direction in space. The first and most well-established data point comes from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the so-called afterglow of the big bang....

A highly detailed survey of the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, which as a nearby spiral galaxy is something of an observational proxy for our own Milky Way, shows the remnants of smaller galaxies that our neighbor appears to have cannibalized. The Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey is not yet complete but is already producing scientific results such as those in this week’s Nature. (Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.) The study’s high-resolution look at Andromeda provides further confirmation of the prevailing theory of galactic growth—that today’s giant galaxies fed on smaller companions to reach their present size....

When Nintendo’s Wii game console debuted in November 2006, its motion-sensing handheld “Wiimotes” got players off the couch and onto their feet. Now Microsoft is trying to outdo its competitor by eliminating the controller altogether: It has revealed details of how it developed Project Natal, which gives Xbox 360 players the ability to manipulate on-screen characters via natural body movements. The machine-learning technology will enable players to do things such as kick a digital soccer ball or swat a handball in their living rooms simply by mimicking the motion ....

GILLETTE, Wyo.—Laura Chapman’s best-selling cupcake is the “Coal Seam Overload,” a decadent chocolate cake topped with rich chocolate frosting and dark chocolate toppings. It’s a tribute to her home state’s top export, a product that eventually is used by 1 out of every 5 homes or businesses in the United States. “It does permeate the whole lifestyle here,” she said, from inside Alla Lala Cupcakes and Sweet Things, Gillette’s first and only cupcake shop, which Chapman opened in the town’s downtown district in 2013....

SAN FRANCISCO—Anxiety among Earth and climate scientists has been mounting for weeks. The election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president, a candidate who called human-driven climate change a hoax, was followed by Trump naming more and more climate-change doubters to run the government’s environment and energy agencies. So this Wednesday a throng of about 2,000 researchers packed a hall at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual meeting here to hear from politicians and leading scientists about whether science is about to be thrown out the window....

Devising better cooling materials has become a pressing issue as the climate warms, and some scientists are turning to nature for ideas. Small creatures with low body mass, such as insects, have to deal with the fact that they warm up much faster than large mammals. When butterflies land on tree branches to bask in the sun, for example, their relatively large wings can overheat within seconds. So they have evolved sophisticated ways to cool themselves....

I’ve never known an Earth that wasn’t on fire. I’m 23 years old, and my entire generation has come of age in a world so defined by climate change and other forms of environmental degradation that it’s sometimes been hard to fathom what an even more dismal future might look like. It has, that is, until the pandemic reared its ugly head. The fate of nature, like so much else, has temporarily become an agonizing side story to COVID—and now the environment is a real-time plot followed mostly, I think, by those of us young enough to one day see the worst of it....

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Ebola is still spreading quickly in western Sierra Leone and deep in the forested interior of Guinea and more foreign health workers are needed to help tackle the epidemic, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday. The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 6,331 in the three worst hit countries, with Sierra Leone overtaking Liberia as the country with the highest number of cases, World Health Organization figures showed on Monday....

The more we learn about Europa, the greater its allure. Galileo Galilei discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons in 1610, and in the intervening centuries Europa, the smallest of them, has revealed itself as a likely harbor for liquid water—and maybe even life. Last week NASA took tentative steps toward sending a robotic mission there—a goal long lauded by planetary scientists. But exploring Europa presents some serious technological, financial and political challenges....

As if Facebook wasn’t already pervasive enough in everyday life, the company’s newly formed Building 8 “moon shot” factory is working on a device they say would let people type out words via a brain–computer interface (BCI). If all goes according to plan—and that’s a big if—Building 8’s neural prosthetic would strap onto a person’s head, use an optical technique to decode intended speech and then type those thoughts on a computer or smartphone at up to 100 words per minute....

It’s a familiar summer scenario: a nest rests in the low crook of a crab apple tree. Inside, a baby oriole stretches its wings, attempting to trill. A little girl’s face looms overhead. She reaches out her colossal finger to stroke the still-wet feathers. Just before contact, her father’s voice booms: “Don’t touch that bird!” According to folklore, birds will reject their eggs and young if humans have so much as laid a finger on them....

Continuing heat and drought are withering corn crops across the Midwest, creating prime conditions for a fungus that produces a toxic carcinogen causing health problems in livestock, according to Purdue University researchers. The fungus, Aspergillus ear rot, infects corn ears through silks or wounds. Fields most at risk, researchers said, were planted in late March or early April. “Aspergillus ear rot is out there, but it varies greatly from field to field,” said Kiersten Wise, a Purdue University Extension plant pathologist....