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Is pulling up invasive kudzu worth the effort? What about sprucing up a degraded stream channel? Restoring damaged ecosystems has long been an act of faith on the part of nature-lovers, but now a new study provides the strongest evidence to date that the practice is not only good for biodiversity, but also for humanity. Since the rise of ecological economics in the 1990s, conservationists have tried to estimate the dollar value of all the eco-services Mother Nature provides society, in the hopes of preserving them....

President-elect Joe Biden said Saturday he’ll put climate change at the top of the Biden-Harris administration. The climate responded with Tropical Storm Eta, the record-tying 28th named storm of the 2020 hurricane season and the first to bring high winds, torrential rain and flooding to Florida this year. Experts say Eta, which could make two landfalls in the Sunshine State by week’s end, put an exclamation point on science-based warnings that tropical systems will grow wetter and more destructive as the climate warms....

They are also among the most vulnerable. Isolation has given rise to a high number of endemic – or regionally unique – species with little history of migration, leaving them ill-equipped to respond to the human influences that have crept through the forests in recent decades. Mineral extraction and agricultural deforestation have taken a toll, and incursions into the region show every sign of expanding. Most alarmingly, warming temperatures have accelerated a process of upslope migration, begun at the close of the last ice age, that threatens to push the region’s biodiversity into increased competition, nutrient-poor soil conditions and, finally, thin air, according to forest ecologists working in the region....

BETTIAH, INDIA—A jeep traveling through this small town in rural Bihar State affords the usual sights: the traffic chaos of donkey carts, cycle-rickshaw wallahs, motorbikes carrying six-person families, wandering cattle and pigs—all contributing to the cacophony of urban Indian life. As the town chaos thins out, there are other sights such as: haystacks, sugar cane fields and bright pink saris. And then, along the roadside, one pile of brown material after the other, in a shameful line....

On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This executive order freed only a few of the millions of slaves living in the United States. But it was a big step toward ending slavery in the United States. For the 150th anniversary of this important event, here’s a look back at how Scientific American, now 167 years old, treated the subject of slavery in its pages. Many of our readers have wondered whether it is (and was) appropriate for Scientific American to cover slavery....

The pattern of brain growth during development may figure more importantly than overall brain size when it comes to intelligence, according to a new study. Scientists have found that the smartest kids start off with a relatively thin cerebral cortex–the outer layer of the brain associated with thought and other higher order functions–which thickens rapidly by age 12 before undergoing the same general diminishment as that of their peers of average intelligence....

Squirrels are not as helpless as they may seem when confronted by rattlesnakes eager to make dinner of their pups. A new study reveals one of their most powerful tactics: the rodents heat their bushy tails and wave them back and forth to warn infrared-sensitive snakes they will not get fast food. Infrared video showed that California ground squirrels’ tails warmed by several degrees, up to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), when threatened by northern Pacific rattlesnakes, which detect the infrared glow from small mammals using so-called pit organs in their noses....

Stem cells so far have been used to mend tissues ranging from damaged hearts to collapsed tracheas. Now the multifaceted cells have proved successful at regrowing bone in humans. In the first procedure of its kind, doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center replaced a 14-year-old boy’s missing cheekbones—in part by repurposing stem cells from his own body. The technique, should it be approved for widespread use, could benefit some seven million people in the U....

Up to 30 percent of the medications in the developing world are poor in quality because either they are improperly manufactured, degraded because of age or poor storage, or produced as counterfeits in rogue factories. The bad medicines can cause severe side effects and death. Identifying them is challenging, however. Many countries lack regulations or routine inspections. Testing equipment can be scarce, cumbersome and costly and can require extensive training—and provide only partial information about a drug’s ingredients....

The giant spiral galaxy Andromeda and the slightly smaller Milky Way are king and queen of our place in space, a gathering of some 75 galaxies called the Local Group. Andromeda and the Milky Way each rule an empire of dozens of lesser galaxies that orbit them the way moons do a giant planet. Recently astronomers have discovered many more of these galactic runts. In that time, a surprising disparity has emerged....

This e-book chapter is excerpted from Ken Shulman’s Venus in Sole Visa, or Venus as Seen against the Sun (Smashwords, 2012). Used with permission of the author. On November 6, 1639, in a stone farmhouse in the Lancashire village of Much Hoole, a university dropout and amateur astronomer named Jeremiah Horrocks sat down to pen a letter to his friend William Crabtree. Steeped in dampness and the odor of burning lamp oil, Horrocks outlined the final steps he and Crabtree needed to take to observe the transit of Venus that Horrocks predicted would occur on November 24....

Intestinal issues are not just for humans. Rhesus macaques living in captivity often develop chronic diarrhea similar to the human autoimmune condition ulcerative colitis. Now these animals are providing new insights about a cure for this condition in both species—and that cure is worms. Small human trials have found that giving people pig whipworm eggs can reduce symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In developing countries where IBD is much less common, parasitic worms (helminths) are often endemic, perhaps conferring some benefit....

Every year in the U.S., doctor’s offices and hospitals order billions of laboratory tests to measure everything from cholesterol levels in the blood to the presence of a gene thought to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Physicians and patients typically assume that they can trust the results of these tests. And most of the time they can. But not all lab tests are equally reliable, and faulty ones can have serious consequences....

Environmentalists and industry groups alike are speculating on what the president has in store next for oil and coal after a seemingly nebulous statement he made during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. “Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future—especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels,” Obama said. Offering his only climate change policy prescription of the evening, he added, “That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet....

As the Supreme Court decides the future of abortion laws in the U.S., a key question to be considered is whether access to the procedure has positive or negative consequences for the people who get an abortion, and for society in general. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerns the constitutionality of a new Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case challenges the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v....

A Bus with Legs Remember the good ol’ days when kids walked to school? Those treks weren’t as rough as some people recall them—five miles through the snow, uphill both ways!—but they did burn calories instead of fossil fuels. Today kids need more opportunities for exercise, but many parents feel it’s not safe for them to walk alone. One simple solution is to organize a “walking school bus” or “bicycle train” for your neighborhood, with one or more adults supervising a group of children traveling together....

Scientific American presents Nutrition Diva by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Fertility medicine, which barely existed 50 or 60 years ago, is one of today’s fastest growing medical specialties. Many couples are waiting longer to start their families these days and as the age of wannabe parents increases, so do their fertility troubles. But are there other factors driving increased fertility problems?...

With this weekend’s revelation that baseball superstar Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez had taken anabolic steroids, the furor over rampant doping in sports continues. A three-time Most Valuable Player, Rodriguez now joins a pantheon of modern baseball greats tarnished by allegations of steroid use, including homerun “king” Barry Bonds and pitching ace Roger Clemens. But unlike those players – the latter of whom denied steroid abuse under oath at a congressional hearing last year – Rodriguez fessed up on ESPN Monday night....

Green investments are spurring significant growth across the U.S economy while decreasing industry’s overall emissions per dollar of goods and services, according to two reports released Wednesday by the federal government. Meanwhile households have replaced industry as the country’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, according to government data. The first report defines and measures the size of the domestic green economy; the other assesses how America’s greenhouse gas emissions have changed over the past decade....

From the time our ancestors first painted on cave walls, the beauty and speed of horses have captured our imagination. During this period, some 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, equids were among the most abundant and ecologically important herbivores on the grasslands of Africa, Asia and the Americas. Today only seven species of wild equids remain–three asses, three zebra and one wild horse–and IUCN-The World Conservation Union now lists most of these as endangered....