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What’s black and white and red all over—and on a multimillion-year jaunt around the solar system? The answer is Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster, launched earlier this month as the test payload for SpaceX’s inaugural flight of its Falcon Heavy rocket. Musk is CEO of both companies. The car was originally intended to chase Mars around the sun. But the rocket’s upper stage delivered better performance than expected, boosting the roadster into an orbit beyond Mars and just shy of the Asteroid Belt....

On a sultry June day, climate scientist James Hansen testified in front of a committee of the U.S. Senate, telling those assembled that “the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.“ That was in 1988. Now, more than three decades later, Congress is poised to pass the first major climate legislation in U.S. history as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. The bill, which has passed in the Senate, directs billions of dollars into clean-energy technology in an attempt to push the country toward President Joe Biden’s ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 50 percent by 2030....

Global positioning system (GPS) technology—now found in everything from cars to wristwatches—has become increasingly popular over the past few years for tracking location. But it has its limits—most notably, roofs, walls and floors that shield satellite signals and keep them from locating GPS receivers indoors. Enter the indoor positioning system (IPS), a budding technology that IPS manufacturers envision as one day tracking the movement of firefighters battling blazes inside burning buildings, patients in hospitals and even retail merchandise swiped from store shelves....

By Brendan Maher of Nature magazineA closed meeting, convened last month by the US Government to decide the fate of two controversial unpublished papers on the H5N1 avian influenza virus was stacked in favor of their full publication, a participant now says. Michael Osterholm, who heads the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, is a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which was tasked with evaluating the research....

Raised in total or partial social isolation, clinging desperately to wire or cloth “mothers,” rhesus monkey infants subjected to American psychologist Harry F. Harlow’s maternal-deprivation experiments in the 1950s self-mutilated, rocked, and showed other signs of deep depression and anxiety. Based on the principle that animal models could illuminate issues of maternal care and depression in humans, Harlow’s research is still discussed in psychology, anthropology and animal behavior classes. Yet this kind of profound primate suffering is not consigned to the historical record....

From Nature magazine The tropical air was charged with hope and despair as the world’s leaders descended on Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations’ Earth summit in May 1992. Countries were buoyed by a string of successful environmental treaties in the 1970s and 1980s, capped by a landmark deal to save the ozone layer in 1987. Yet the Earth summit in Rio, which drew 178 nations and around 100 heads of state, was also rife with frustration and distrust....

A microbe, descended from microorganisms common in the human gut, migrates to the genital region and flourishes, expanding both its size and the complexity of its genome. Trichomonas vaginalis has 10 times the genetic material of its closest microbial peers and more confirmed genes–26,000–than its human host. Plus, with the potential for up to 34,000 yet-to-be confirmed genes, the eukaryote has the biggest genome of any single-celled organism yet sequenced, according to a study in the January 12 Science....

CLEVELAND — The Republican National Convention is coming to town next week, and Dr. Robert Wyllie is ready with a binder 6 inches thick, crammed full of plans for dealing with any potential medical emergency. He’s not alone. Across both Cleveland and Philadelphia, where the Democrats will convene at the end of July, hospitals are girding for the presidential nominating conventions. Both cities can expect a slew of relatively minor problems: exhaustion, dehydration, misplaced medications, a delegate or two — or 20 — having too much to drink....

Thousands of years before cats came to dominate Internet culture, they swept through ancient Eurasia and Africa carried by early farmers, ancient mariners and even Vikings, finds the first large-scale look at ancient-cat DNA. The study, presented at a conference on September 15, sequenced DNA from more than 200 cats that lived between about 15,000 years ago and the eighteenth century A.D. Researchers know little about cat domestication, and there is active debate over whether the house cat (Felis silvestris) is truly a domestic animal—that is, its behaviour and anatomy are clearly distinct from those of wild relatives....

A national push to curb greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy technologies is creating an unusual business challenge for electric utilities. Success means selling less of their product. “What other business do you see in the U.S. economy where you expect a company that has a good business model to spend and to invest a lot of money to use less of their product?” said Larry Makovich, vice president at IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates Inc....

In a world first, Chinese scientists have reported that they have used powerful gene-editing techniques to modify human embryos. Their paper, published in the Beijing-based journal Protein & Cell on April 18, came as no surprise to the scientific community, but it has ignited a wide-ranging debate about what types of gene-editing research are ethical. The publication also raises questions about the appropriate way to publish such work. In the paper, researchers led by Junjiu Huang, a gene-function researcher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, describe how they used a system of molecules called CRISPR/Cas9, known for its ease of use, to cut DNA in human embryos and then attempted to repair it by introducing new DNA....

The devastation wreaked along the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina has raised difficult questions about our ability to predict and prepare for natural disasters. The results of a new study suggest that there may be more Katrinas in the future. According to an analysis published today in Science, the number of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the past 35 years. Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology and his colleagues analyzed hurricane data collected between 1970 and 2004 around the world....

Inflammation in the body has gotten a bad rap recently, thanks to the exacerbating role it may play in health problems such as heart disease and cancer. Now there may be one more malady to add to the list: Alzheimer’s disease. When inflammation arises in the body as a result of infection or injury, the immune response also appears to accelerate memory loss in people with Alzheimer’s, according to a recent study published in the journal Neurology....

Many of our most ambitious space missions to space have been made possible using nuclear power. On Thursday (Jan. 18), scientists and officials from NASA and the Department of Energy gathered at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas to discuss the Kilopower project, the next generation of nuclear power plants for future space missions. In the past, NASA has used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) to power spacecraft like Voyagers 1 and 2, the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages, and the Curiosity rover....

NASA’s plans to continue its exploration of the solar system do not include packing enough drinking water for astronauts during months-long missions. Instead, NASA will rely on a water-recovery system that recycles not only condensed water vapor and trace contaminants from crew perspiration and respiration but urine as well. Such technology has been in development for decades. But the water-recovery system that will become part of NASA’s Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System, or ECLSS, for the International Space Station (ISS), still needs a number of improvements if it is to support the space agency’s ambitions of returning to the moon and pushing onward toward Mars....

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk likes reusability. With 16 successful rocket landings under its belt, along with two reused rockets and one reused Dragon spacecraft, Musk’s rocket company has made giant leaps in reusable booster technology for sure. But an amazing new video from the company, which Musk has touted as a mere “blooper reel,” shows just how hard it is to launch rockets into space and land them safely again. Musk posted the video—called “How Not to Land a Rocket”—on Twitter today (Sept....

Every month, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN—the longest-running magazine in the U.S. and an authoritative voice in science, technology and innovation—provides insight into scientific topics that affect our daily lives and capture our imagination, establishing the vital bridge between science and public policy. Now available on iPad STATE OF THE WORLD’S SCIENCE • The U.S. should replicate Germany’s approach to boost its economy through championing its manufacturing sector. President Barack Obama’s proposed $1-billion National Network for Manufacturing Innovation follows the model of the German Fraunhofer Society....

Scientists around the world are currently hard at work genetically engineering new strains of mosquitoes that are poor hosts for diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever, in the hopes of cutting down the spread of these germs. New research suggests, however, that although these insects might succeed in reducing the number of infections, they might also inadvertently boost the severity of remaining ones. Researchers at Yale University and their colleagues investigated dengue, a mosquito-borne virus for which there is no vaccine or cure....

The Ravenmaster awoke at the crack of dawn. He emerged from his quarters and onto the grounds. He then prepared water and food for the seven ravens he lives with before releasing six of them for the day. Merlina was already out—she prefers to sleep outside. None of the ravens has three eyes or carries messages. This wasn’t Winterfell; it’s the Tower of London. And it wasn’t a portentous day in 1215 or 1455 or 1605 or 1837....

Key concepts Forces Friction Symmetry Wind power Introduction Have you ever played with a toy pinwheel—or seen larger real-life versions, such as a windmill or wind turbine? Have you wondered why they look the way they do—with multiple blades, arranged symmetrically? Why can’t they get away with just one blade? Or blades of different shapes and sizes? Try this fun project to find out! Background Spinning blades are used in a wide variety of machines....