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Friday (April 6) brings us the first full moon of the new spring season. The official moment that the moon turns full is 19:19 UT, or 3:19 p.m. EDT. Traditionally, the April full moon is known as “the Pink Moon,” supposedly as a tribute to the grass pink or wild ground phlox, considered one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other monikers include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon and, among coastal Native American tribes, the Full Fish Moon, for when the shad came upstream to spawn....

LONDON – The good news is that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to decline. “Over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen,” said President Obama in his State of the Union address last month. The bad news is the United States is exporting its polluting gases, particularly in the form of coal, like never before. Figures released earlier this month by the U....

You probably know the GIF as the perfect vehicle for sharing memes and reactions. We believe the format can go further, that it has real power to capture science and explain research in short, digestible loops. So kick off your week right with this GIF-able science. Enjoy and loop on. Hard Drugs, Magnetically Levitated Components of a common and dangerous mixture of illicit drugs (fentanyl-laced heroin, cut with lactose) separate in a new magnetic levitation device....

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week fined electronics recycler Jet Ocean Technology of Chino, Calif., just over $10,000 for illegally exporting cathode-ray tubes from old television sets to China. Jet Ocean is only the second electronics recycler to be penalized for shipping and deliberately mislabeling the tubes, which contain the brain-damaging metal lead. It falsely labeled the cargo as “mixed metal scrap” when it shipped it out—and as “scrap metal” when China (after being warned by Greenpeace of the true contents) refused to accept delivery and returned it....

Since the space age began, the orbital realm has become increasingly littered with the detritus of skyward human striving—spent rocket boosters, dead satellites, stray pieces of hardware. Debris is piling up with such speed that it has become a threat to the kind of spacefaring endeavors that spawned it in the first place. A September report by the National Research Council found that the debris field is so dense that collisions between objects in orbit will create additional debris faster than space junk falls out of orbit....

Polar bears’ metabolism does not slow very much during the summer months when sea ice melts and food becomes scarce, according to a study published today (16 July) in Science. With the Arctic warming faster than the global average, the finding does not bode well for the bears (Ursus maritimus), who use the ice as a hunting ground. The Arctic ice is melting earlier each summer and freezing later each winter, limiting the animals’ chances to catch seals....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Shortly after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, both governments said that the Russian military had taken over the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. In a tweet, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised fears of possible ecological disaster. On April 26, 1986, a nuclear reactor at the plant near the city of Pripyat, Ukraine, exploded....

Earlier this month, Italian researchers made a claim that, if taken at face value, would earn them a place in scientific history. The DAMA (DArk MAtter) collaboration, based at the University of Rome, announced at a scientific meeting in Venice that it had directly detected dark matter—the invisible, nigh undetectable stuff believed to give added heft to galaxies. Although other researchers in the field place little confidence in the report, which clashes with their own experimental results, it does highlight the progress and challenges in searching for an elusive quarry that may not actually exist....

Many observers in North America, Australia and Asia will have a chance to catch a total lunar eclipse in the early hours of Wednesday, October 7. Starting at 5:15 a.m. EDT the moon will pass into Earth’s shadow, turning a coppery red. The period of totality, when the moon is completely within the shadow, begins at 6:25 a.m. EDT. The eclipse will be over by 8:34 a.m. Weather permitting, this event—the second total lunar eclipse of the year—should provide a good show....

Two drug companies have now reported highly successful results from phase III trials of COVID-19 vaccines. On November 18 Pfizer and partner BioNTech said their vaccine was 95 percent effective at preventing the disease, based on full trial results. Two days earlier Moderna reported its vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, based on interim data. Both Pfizer and Moderna use the same genetically engineered vaccine approach, which involves messenger RNA molecules. Assuming the U....

Dinosaurs’ long reign on Earth may have had more to do with lady luck than with superiority, according to a study published today in Science. The study challenges the old notion that dinosaurs out-competed their reptilian contemporaries. It is a longstanding mystery why dinosaurs became and remained so plentiful for more than 180 million years. The traditional theory: dinosaurs suddenly replaced other land animals because of special traits that gave them an evolutionary advantage, such as being warm-blooded, nimble and able to occupy varied habitats....

Astronomers are scratching their heads over two mysterious objects in space that are unlike anything scientists have seen before. The objects blast superbright, superfast X-ray flares and could represent a brand new type of astrophysical phenomenon, the researchers said. When these weird X-ray sources flare up, they become 100 times brighter in less than a minute. About an hour after a flare, the brightness returns back to normal. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” Jimmy Irwin of the University of Alabama, who led the study, said in a statement....

Education generally focuses on what you study, such as algebra, the elements of the periodic table or how to conjugate verbs. But learning how to study can be just as important, with lifelong benefits. It can teach you to pick up knowledge faster and more efficiently and allow you to retain information for years rather than days. Cognitive and educational psychologists have developed and evaluated numerous techniques, ranging from rereading to summarizing to self-testing, for more than 100 years....

HOHHOT, China – It was late spring, and armed police were barring Inner Mongolia University students from leaving campus to protest the death of a herder run over by a coal truck. Students amassed in towns across the province to condemn coal companies they accused of riding roughshod over livestock grazing land. “They wanted to go to the streets, too!” recounted Tegusbayar, a professor of Mongolian culture. The presence of Chinese security forces kept his students at bay, and dampened the potential for protests to turn violent at the end of May....

Chemicals derived from flowers may sound harmless, but new research raises concerns about compounds synthesized from chrysanthemums that are used in virtually every household pesticide. For at least a decade, pyrethroids have been the insecticide of choice for consumers, replacing organophosphate pesticides, which are far more toxic to people and wildlife. But evidence is mounting that the switch to less-toxic pyrethroids has brought its own set of new ecological and human health risks....

How do the same fish species end up in different lakes hundreds of miles apart? —S. Snyder, Sebring, Fla. Megan McPhee, an assistant research professor at the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station, offers this explanation: There are two general explanations for how a fish species might end up in different lakes separated by great distances. The first is termed “vicariance” by biogeographers, who study the distribution of organisms. In this case, a species originally occupies a much larger, continuous range....

Australian officials plan to redouble their efforts to save the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of global warming. The world’s largest coral reef system is under threat from rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification and violent tropical weather. Scientists also have struggled to contain outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish, a polyp-eating predator that can threaten the reef’s health. In response to these dangers, Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment is floating a 30-year plan to protect the natural wonder....

BEIJING (Reuters) - Alarmed by pollution in the Chinese capital, authorities in Beijing will crack down on smoky outdoor grills from May 1, in a move that will hit the city’s popular kebab stalls, state media reported on Wednesday. During Beijing’s sweltering summers, many residents gather round sidewalk tables, drinking beer and eating food cooked in the street, and the ban is bound to make an impact coming into effect on a labor day holiday....

If two men began a boisterous tug-of-war over the wine list at a posh restaurant, more than a few heads would turn. Yet two six-year-old kids quarreling over a pack of crayons at a diner would hardly seem unusual. It is normal for kindergartners to act out and for grown-ups to show restraint. But social pressure alone cannot explain why adults are so much better at thinking before they act and recognizing how others view them....

At first glance you might not notice anything odd on meeting a young boy with autism. But if you try to talk to him, it will quickly become obvious that something is seriously wrong. He may not make eye contact with you; instead he may avoid your gaze and fidget, rock his body to and fro, or bang his head against the wall. More disconcerting, he may not be able to conduct anything remotely resembling a normal conversation....