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Cell biologist Desmond Tobin spends his days harvesting organs from cosmetic surgery patients. But Tobin is not after kidneys or other vital parts. Instead he collects swatches of skin removed from behind the ear during face-lift procedures. Crucially for Tobin, the skin samples contain the miniature organs, known as follicles, that produce hair. At the Center for Skin Sciences at the University of Bradford in England, Tobin carefully extracts the follicles and uses them to replicate human hair growth in a petri dish....

For an astronomer, winning precious observation time on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for your study is a big deal—more than three quarters of proposals are rejected. It turns out, however, that this honor is a bit easier for men to achieve than women. An internal Hubble study found that in each of the past 11 observation proposal cycles, applications led by male principal investigators had a higher success rate than those led by women....

ARGENTINA The earliest dinosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs, paleontologists say. A new chemical analysis of a more than 200-million-year-old fossilized egg from Patagonia—and a clutch of more recent eggs from Mongolia, found in the Gobi Desert—revealed a thin film matching the characteristics of modern soft-shelled eggs. ENGLAND Archaeologists found that 20 deep shafts, previously thought to be natural sinkholes and ponds, were dug by Neolithic humans. The shafts form a circle two kilometers in diameter, with the Durrington Walls monument at its center, just three kilometers from Stonehenge....

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich touted the merits of Intel’s manufacturing process compared with that of Apple’s new 64-bit A7 chip today after the company’s earnings report. During Intel’s third-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday, an analyst questioned Intel about the advantages of going to a 14-nanometer manufacturing process, compared with Apple’s 28-nanometer A7 chip. “[Apple] has been able to show very impressive benchmarks on 28-nanometer silicon,” the analyst stated. Generally, the smaller the chip geometries, the more advanced the chip manufacturing process and thus the faster and/or more power efficient the chip can be....

TOKYO (Reuters) - Two chickens have tested positive for avian influenza at a farm in Japan where more than 1,000 chickens have died, marking the country’s first case of bird flu in three years, the Agricultural Ministry said on Sunday. The highly pathogenic H5 virus was detected through genetic testing of chickens at a farm in Kumamoto prefecture in the south, the ministry said on its Website. A total of 1,100 chickens have died and about 112,000 would be culled, media said....

The NRC’s inspection report, released Friday, did not flag the plant’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) for a serious violation of the rules the commission has imposed to assure the plant’s safe shutdown in an anticipated emergency. But it did list more than a half-dozen issues that could jeopardize the plant if it were confronted with the kind of chain reaction of unexpected and unplanned-for calamities that struck the Fukushima nuclear complex....

A weak economy and rising energy prices have led to a buzz over building efficiency. Light bulb regulations, LEED and Energy Star ratings for homes and appliances, stricter construction codes, and government incentives are all parts of a national effort to cut energy waste in the building sector. Nearly 40 percent of the nation’s energy is consumed by homes and commercial buildings, which means that making them more efficient would not only save money but also drastically reduce carbon emissions....

A blue-black field of 5.2 million solar panels tilted toward the Arizona sun might just be the Hoover Dam project of the Great Recession. The Agua Caliente Solar Power Project hosts nearly 300 megawatts of silicon photovoltaics (PV) that turn sunshine into electricity. That made the Yuma County facility the largest working solar farm in the world when it opened in April 2014. But when it comes to mega–energy projects, Agua Caliente has competition, including four of the world’s largest solar-power plants to use the sun’s heat and one of the largest wind farms on the planet....

FORT MCMURRAY—Air monitoring equipment litters northern Alberta. From Fort Chipewyan south towards Edmonton there are 17 sites measuring air quality, but here the monitoring outpost sits across the Athabasca River from the highway that connects the mining town with the oil mines to the north, and just down the road from the new multi-million dollar recreation center. Machines, such as the electronic nose or the laser-wielding robot that measures atmospheric ozone 10 kilometers up known as the sun photometer, constantly monitor the concentrations of pollution in the air....

A site in Springfield, Ill., where a white mob murdered six African Americans and burned Black homes and businesses in a 1908 race riot, could become a new addition of the National Park Service. The COVID-19 relief bill signed by President Trump last night included a provision that ordered the National Park Service to conduct a study to determine whether to allow the site to become part of the NPS portfolio, which now includes 423 units....

Brief periods of interrupted breathing during sleep affect an estimated 10 to 25 percent of people in the U.S. A smattering of studies have linked the condition, known as obstructive sleep apnea, to a host of serious health risks, such as cardiovascular disease, obesity and even accidents—but long-term, population-based data on mortality overall have been lacking. A new, 15-year-long study, published online yesterday in PLoS Medicine, followed 6,441 men and women—both with and without the condition—in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s large Sleep Heart Health Study to see if there was any correlation between apnea and a higher risk of death....

Although the stereotypical scientist stays in the lab, most researchers spend at least some time studying their subject out in the field. Geologists visit volcanoes, botanists retreat to rain forests, and oceanographers swim the seas. But in the absence of accessible rides to space, astrophysicists and planetary scientists have been forced to watch their experiments leave Earth without them. That is about to change as the rise of commercial launch providers such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic creates new opportunities for scientists hoping to do their work in space....

Every year astronomers see hundreds of supernovae erupt in other galaxies, but from such great distances these stellar explosions look only like bright dots. Researchers therefore prize the few supernovae that past observers witnessed in the Milky Way, where telescopes can scrutinize the wreckage. Since the year A.D. 1000, skywatchers have seen five of our galaxy’s stars die in brilliant explosions. Now a new distance determination to the most mysterious of these is yielding new insight into its nature....

SAN FRANCISCO—Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s distaste for the Paris climate agreement, countries around the world are already working to ensure that the global temperature rise stays below 2 degrees Celsius. This week at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference here, several prominent scientists discussed the critical steps researchers and decision makers need to take now. They said reducing carbon emissions is important, of course, but countries worldwide must also put more energy into adapting to changing weather that even moderate warming will bring, as well as consider the potential of controversial geoengineering techniques to keep warming in check....

The path taken out of Africa by early Homo sapiens may have had a scenic ocean view, a new genetic analysis suggests. The results, published today in the journal Science, indicate that our forebears followed a southern route along the coast and into Southeast Asia, instead of a northern route overland through the Middle East as previous theories held. Researchers use mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from present-day humans to determine when populations diverged by considering the amount of variation as a measure of time....

Do people lose their senses of smell and taste as they age? —N. Sly, Windsor, Australia Charles J. Wysocki, a neuroscientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia who studies variation among individuals in the perception of odors and the response of the human nose to chemical irritation, explains: IT IS TRUE THAT as people age they often complain about decreases—or even losses—in their ability to taste a superb meal or a fine beverage....

From intimidating and intense to warm and fuzzy, distinct yawns among gelada baboons send different social messages, according to a new study. Humans and most other vertebrates experience yawns as a result of various physiological and mental states, including sleepiness or emotional arousal, such as fear or excitement. But despite their different sources, these yawns often look identical and are difficult to distinguish by onlookers. Gelada baboons, native to Ethiopia, are unique among yawning animals in that they have three distinct types of yawns that are easy to identify....

SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. Last week the Future of Life Institute released a letter signed by some 1,500 artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and technology researchers. Among them were celebrities of science and the technology industry—Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak—along with public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Daniel Dennett. The letter called for an international ban on offensive autonomous weapons, which could target and fire weapons without meaningful human control....

The augmented-reality game “Pokémon Go” may be the hottest thing in mobile gaming right now, but new advances in computer science could give players an even more realistic experience in the future, according to a new study. In fact, researchers say a new imaging technique could help make imaginary characters, such as Pokémon, appear to convincingly interact with real objects. A new imaging technique called Interactive Dynamic Video can take pictures of real objects and quickly create video simulations that people, or 3D models, can virtually interact with, the researchers said....

From the start, Tzippora Gold was a smart and loving little girl, with a strong independent streak and tons of energy. During infancy and toddlerhood, her family noticed nothing amiss. But when Tzippora entered preschool, she did not listen to the teacher or sit in a circle. “I had never in my life thought that a three-year-old could get sent to the principal’s office,” recalls her mother, Sara Gold of New York City, a graphic designer....