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By Erika Check Hayden of Nature magazineMost scientists would never pursue an experiment that was almost guaranteed to fail. But not only is microbiologist Rosie Redfield, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, attempting to replicate the disputed claim that a bacterium can incorporate arsenic into its DNA backbone, she is doing so in public view, detailing her work in an open lab notebook on her blog. “It takes a ton of huevos on her part,” says biophysicist Steven Koch at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque....

Masters of the martial art of Tae Kwon Do have gotten so lightning-quick that even a team of four judges placed around a competition ring can have a hard time keeping up. That is where a human-computer interface invented by Jin Y. Song, a veteran Silicon Valley–based electrical engineer and Tae Kwon Do black belt, comes in. The invention relies on three different types of sensors embedded in traditional Tae Kwon Do head and torso protectors, plus modern wireless technology and magnets to accurately track and score blows to the body and head delivered in the blink of an eye....

Moments of confusion can be pretty memorable—and not in a good way. How is this thing supposed to work? What is the teacher’s point? Where am I? But confusion is greatly underrated, Jamie Holmes argues in his new book, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing (Crown, 2015; 336 pages). Our discomfort with not knowing, he writes, can lead us to bad solutions or to brilliant options we would have otherwise never spotted....

By Nicola Jones of Nature Magazine The world’s insatiable demand for the rare-earth elements needed to make almost all technological gadgets could one day be partially met by sea-floor mining, hints an assessment of the Pacific Ocean’s resources. But accessing the treasure trove of key elements on the ocean floor will be very expensive and potentially harmful to sea-floor ecology. In Nature Geoscience this week, Yasuhiro Kato, a geosystem engineer at the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues catalogue The rare-earth elements – metals such as lanthanum and neodymium – are used to make strong magnets, which help to drive the motors in everything from laptops to electric cars and washing machines....

We’ve all seen the pretty pictures. Colored scans, produced by techniques that measure blood flow or the movement of a tracer chemical, reveal the activity of areas of the brain when we are thinking about something. The revolution in imaging in the past couple of decades has taught us a lot about what the brain is doing while we cogitate. One thing we’ve learned is that those more active areas aren’t always the same from brain to brain when considering a certain problem....

There is speculation among some politicians and pundits that the fog of war will soon extend to the Internet, if it has not done so already, given a recent report that the U.S. Department of Defense will introduce its first cyberwarfare doctrine this month, combined with similar announcements from the governments of Australia, China and the U.K. (not to mention Google’s ongoing cyber spat with China). Less clear, however, are the rules of engagement—such as what constitutes an act of cyberwar as opposed to the cyberattacks that take place on government computers every day and who, if anyone, should mediate such disputes....

Amputees who suffer from phantom-limb pain could get some relief, thanks to a potential new experimental treatment involving virtual reality. One man who suffered severe phantom pain for 48 years after his arm was amputated reported a dramatic reduction in his pain after the experimental treatment, in which signals from his limb stump controlled a virtual reality arm, according to a case study detailed today (Feb. 25) in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience....

Women who apply for tenure-track positions at top-tier research universities in math and sciences these days have a slightly better chance of landing the job than their male colleagues, says a new study funded by the National Science Foundation. But that’s just for those who apply, which is a good tick lower than those who earn PhDs. In chemistry, for example, women made up 32 percent of newly minted PhDs from 1999 to 2003 but accounted for only 18 percent of applicants to tenure-track positions....

The ongoing rash of police using deadly force against minority citizens has triggered a search for a universal cause—most commonly identified as racism. Such soul searching is understandable, especially in light of the racist e-mails uncovered in the Ferguson, Mo., police department by the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. To whatever extent prejudice still percolates in the minds of a few cops in a handful of pockets of American society (nothing like 50 years ago), it does not explain the many interactions between white police and minority citizens that unfold without incident every year or the thousands of cases of assaults on police that do not end in police deaths (49,851 in 2013, according to the FBI)....

The Senate’s funny guy is not joking around about climate change. The highlight of an hourslong budget hearing in June came when Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) circled figuratively around Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who claimed incorrectly that humans are not the primary control knob for rising temperatures. Perry appeared frustrated and then asked what’s wrong with being called a climate skeptic. He also voiced support for openly debating the scientific underpinnings of climate change....

Superstorm Sandy’s 2012 surge swamped lower Manhattan, unmoored a Jersey Shore roller coaster and pushed the toxic waters of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal into nearby basements. All told, the storm’s floodwaters did more than $60 billion in property damage in New York State, New Jersey and Connecticut. Although scientists have long known global warming is exacerbating such events by raising sea levels, a recent study calculated just how much of Sandy’s bill can be charged to climate change: about $8 billion....

No one’s health should be hostage to a caregiver’s opinion of his or her morality. In prisons, even hardened murderers are entitled to decent, prompt medical attention. A woman walking into a pharmacy with a prescription deserves no less. Yet in at least a dozen states, pharmacists have refused to fill clients’ orders for birth control on personal moral grounds. Often the prescriptions have been for emergency contraception–the “morning-after” pills marketed as Plan B and Preven that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex....

It’s pretty safe to say that Nick Riggle is the only former professional skater who also holds a Ph.D. from New York University’s prestigious philosophy program. It’s also hard to imagine that anyone else has thought so deeply about the nature of awesomeness: its meaning, its importance, and the ways that true awesomeness is under threat. In “On Being Awesome,” Riggle offers a careful dissection of the psycho-philosophical categories of sucking (“killjoy” is fundamentally different from “sucky”)....

Most people tend to think of Venus as completely uninhabitable, given that its surface temperature hovers around 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius), which doesn’t seem very inviting. But I have long championed the idea that life could exist in the thick cloud decks that shroud the planet. In my 1997 book Venus Revealed, I pointed out that our then-new view of Venus from the Magellan radar orbiter showed that our next-door solar system neighbor had a geologically active surface that must be interacting chemically with the cool clouds above, and possibly even biogeochemical flows that could encourage and nourish high-altitude organisms....

Karen Handel defeated Jon Ossoff for the highly contested 6th Congressional District seat in Georgia on Tuesday night. This race was the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history and a key victory for Republicans who want to hold on to their majority despite polls showing their vision for health care is widely unpopular. Handel will replace Tom Price, the former orthopedic surgeon who vacated the seat to become President Trump’s health secretary....

By Alla Katsnelson of Nature magazineWhen electrical rhythms in the heart go haywire, applying a strong electric shock to the chest can set them straight. But the procedure can also damage heart tissue and cause intense pain, prompting a search for a gentler approach. A technique tested in dogs now claims to be just that: it resets heart arrhythmias by applying a series of five small shocks, instead of one large one, slashing the amount of energy needed by about 84%....

Imagining your tennis serve or mentally running through an upcoming speech might help you perform better, studies have shown, but the reasons why have been unclear. A common theory is that mental imagery activates some of the same neural pathways involved in the actual experience, and a recent study in Psychological Science lends support to that idea. Scientists at the University of Oslo conducted five experiments investigating whether eye pupils adjust to imagined light as they do to real light, in an attempt to see whether mental imagery can trigger automatic neural processes such as pupil dilation....

Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal. Edited by Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober. Princeton University Press, 2006 ($22.95) Frans de Waal believes that humans are, by nature, good and social. A primatologist who has devoted his life to studying chimpanzee behavior, de Waal says we have evolution to thank for our moral behavior, the essential antecedents of which can be found among lower animals. Primates and Philosopherscontains the text of lectures de Waal delivered in 2004, together with responses from four philosophers who agree with some of his ideas and reject others....

If your brownies came out too crispy on top but undercooked in the center, it would make sense to bake the next batch at a lower temperature, for more time or in a different pan—but not to make all three changes at once. Realizing that you can best tell which variable matters by altering only one at a time is a cardinal principle of scientific inquiry. Since the 1990s studies have shown that children think scientifically—making predictions, carrying out mini experiments, reaching conclusions and revising their initial hypotheses in light of new evidence....

Nanoparticles in sunscreens, cosmetics and hundreds of other consumer products may pose risks to the environment by damaging beneficial microbes, scientists reported Tuesday. A study by University of Toledo researchers discovered that nano-titanium dioxide used in personal care products reduced biological roles of bacteria after less than an hour of exposure. The findings suggest that these particles, which end up at municipal sewage treatment plants after being washed off in showers, could eliminate microbes that play vital roles in ecosystems and help treat wastewater....