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Women who develop gestational diabetes early in their pregnancy have a higher chance of having a child with autism than women who don’t develop the condition, a new study suggests. Researchers found that mothers-to-be who developed gestational diabetes — high blood sugar during pregnancy in women who have never had diabetes — by their 26th week of pregnancy were 63 percent more likely to have a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with women who did not have gestational diabetes at any point during their pregnancy (and who also did not have type 2 diabetes prior to pregnancy)....

A sweeping effort to contain Ebola after the first patient diagnosed in the U.S. was placed into isolation at a hospital in Dallas has already run into problems. Four family members of the Ebola patient, a Liberian national, were apparently not following health officials’ request to quarantine themselves, so yesterday Texas authorities took action and legally ordered them to stay at home and not receive visitors. The family members have a member of local law enforcement posted at their apartment to ensure they will remain in quarantine until October 19 when the incubation period for Ebola has passed and the family is no longer at risk of becoming symptomatic for the disease....

Soccer, beer and bratwurst were very likely the only things on fans’ minds as they descended on Germany to celebrate the World Cup this June. But all that partying had a downside–pollution. One million soccer tourists consumed a lot of energy. Environmentalism is part of the German zeitgeist, so it is only fitting that the event had a “green goal,” too. A consortium including FIFA, the international soccer federation, and the German football association DFB donated 1....

It could take decades, at least, to replace cheap, abundant fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources. In the meantime, many scientists and government officials around the world think the next best option for keeping Earth’s rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in check is to prevent the gas from escaping in the first place. This can be done by using a chemical solvent to separate it from the emitted byproducts of power plants and other high-polluting facilities like aluminum manufacturing plants and then burying (technically injecting) it deep underground—a process known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)....

Scientific American presents Tech Talker by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. You may have heard the term “Big Data” before, but did you ever wonder what it means exactly, or more importantly, how it affects your life? Today we’ll discuss just that. What Is Big Data? Let’s talk about what Big Data actually is. Big Data is a pretty general term used to describe huge datasets that require a massive amount of storage (measured in terabytes, petabytes, and exabytes), and huge amounts of processing power to make sense of all the data....

The Army Corps of Engineers plans a major study of ways to reduce flooding along the lower section of the Missouri River, where record precipitation and failed levees have devastated communities in the past year. The study will analyze a 735-mile span of the nation’s longest river and its tributaries — a stretch that runs from Nebraska’s northeast corner to eastern Missouri, where the Missouri River empties into the Mississippi River....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said Tuesday it plans to use its leverage within global development banks to limit financing for coal-fired power plants abroad, part of Washington’s international strategy to combat climate change.The U.S. Treasury said it would only support funding for coal plants in the world’s poorest countries if they have no other efficient or economical alternative for their energy needs.For richer countries, it would only support coal plants that deploy carbon capture and sequestration, an advanced technology for reducing emissions that is not yet commercially viable....

The Ankole cattle of Uganda boast long, curved horns. The breed has thrived in this eastern African country for millennia thanks to its ability to subsist on poor forage and limited water [see video here]. But facing growing consumer demand for milk, these native cattle are increasingly being replaced by European Holstein-Friesian cows—known for their distinctive black patches and their ability to produce prodigious quantities of milk—and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that Ankole could become extinct within 20 years....

A gene-therapy technique that aims to prevent mothers from passing on harmful genes to children through their mitochondria — the cell’s energy-producing structures — might not always work. Mitochondrial replacement therapy involves swapping faulty mitochondria for those of a healthy donor. But if even a small number of mutant mitochondria are retained after the transfer — a common occurrence — they can outcompete healthy mitochondria in a child’s cells and potentially cause the disease the therapy was designed to avoid, experiments suggest....

A new mother’s body goes through many changes—among them, key parts of her brain get bigger, according to research reported in October’s Behavioral Neuroscience. And the more these areas grow, the greater the mother-infant bond seems to be. Structural changes in animal brains, says National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Pilyoung Kim, are critical to getting mothers to take care of their offspring. Similar changes in human mothers, she observes, might be necessary for attentive parenting and ultimately forming long-term emotional bonds, and now there is evidence suggesting that possibility....

In the beginning, there was matter and antimatter, and then there was only matter. Why? This question is one of the defining mysteries of physics. For decades theorists have come up with potential solutions, most involving the existence of extra particles beyond the known species in the universe. Last week scientists announced tantalizing findings that point toward one possible solution, but the data fall short of a definitive discovery. Whatever the final answer is, resolving the question may tell us more than just why we live in a universe of matter—it could expose secrets from the earliest epochs of the cosmos or even connect us to the invisible dark matter that eludes scientists....

It’s no secret that when traveling abroad, people often find local residents’ body odor particularly offensive. And mothers tend to believe that other infants smell far less appealing than their own. Now, in a study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of researchers has shown that the degree of disgust people find in others’ sweat may vary with group identification. In other words, disgust may depend on whether one considers the person they smell to be a member of their “in-group” or “out-group....

Mark Herrema’s road to making renewable plastics without oil wasn’t easy. The 31-year-old Princeton graduate set aside his studies in politics and medical school plans to pursue his passion to make a plastic from methane, a colorless gas and a common byproduct on farms. He and his business partner, Kenton Kimmel, slowly built their enterprise working odd jobs like hotel bellhops and valets. A decade later, private equity firms are backing their company, Newlight Technologies, and they’ve built two facilities to produce plastic pellets called AirCarbon....

As supplies of vaccines against monkeypox remain constrained and the number of people contracting the disease continues to mount, physicians and researchers are looking to the drug tecovirimat for relief. In animals infected with monkeypox, the antiviral has been shown to lower the amount of virus in their bodies and reduce the number of fluid-filled ‘pox’ lesions forming on their skin. Efficacy data in humans, however, are much more limited, making some researchers and regulatory agencies hesitant about authorizing tecovirimat’s widespread use....

We have so radically transformed our cities and towns that few visual clues remain to their natural landscapes and waterways. Creeks have been holstered into pipes. Wetlands have been filled with dirt and paved. Yet signs of vanished waters stubbornly pop up in unexpected places, such as seasonal “ghost creeks” running through basements. Joel Pomerantz—a San Franciscan who has devoted three decades to rediscovering the city’s historic waterways—checks for traffic, then guides me to a manhole in the middle of residential Eddy Street near busy Divisadero....

Neuroscientists have long believed that the tremors, stiffness and sluggish gait characteristic of Parkinson’s disease resulted from the death of neurons in a section of the midbrain that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine, which helps to maintain proper motion control. A new study in mice, however, suggests that the disorder may actually be caused not only by hobbled dopamine-producing cells but also by neurons in the locus coeruleus region of the brain stem that produce norepinephrine, a chemical related to dopamine and associated with everything from anxiety to attention to blood pressure regulation....

Americans consume more fructose than ever before, yet concerns remain that the sugar, used to sweeten beverages and processed foods, poses health risks. In animals, fructose-rich diets increase the production of fat and promote resistance to the energy-regulating hormone insulin. New research suggests that memory suffers as well, at least in rats. Neuroscientist Marise B. Parent of Georgia State University and her col­leagues fed 11 adolescent rats a diet in which fructose supplied 60 percent of the calories....

In efforts to increase fairness in science publishing, some journals are experimenting with the idea of ‘blinding’ reviewers to the identity of the authors. Some researchers have long worried that manuscripts submitted for publication are judged not on the quality of the work but on the reputation of the author submitting it. Although authors are rarely told who is reviewing their work, reviewers generally are informed of whose papers they are evaluating....

Scientists have found that a lessened supply of new nerve cells in the adult brain apparently triggers short-term memory loss typically associated with aging, setting the stage for one day developing therapies designed to maintain a steady supply of fresh neurons to keep the mind sharp. “Neurogenesis (nerve-cell production) goes down with age … it’s known that with old age there’s a decrease in short- term memory,” says Ronald Evans, a genetics professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif....

All the ancestors of contemporary Europeans apparently did not migrate out of Africa as previously believed. According to a new analysis of more than 5,000 teeth from long-perished members of the genus Homo and the closely related Australopithecus, many early settlers hailed from Asia. Erik Trinkaus, a physical anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis (who was not involved in the study), says most evolutionary biologists and anthropologists believe there were three major waves of migration from Africa to Europe: the first occurring about two million to 1....