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Dear EarthTalk: How do I learn about what pesticides may be on the food I eat? — Beatrice Olson, Cleveland, OH Along with the rise in the popularity of organic food has come an increased awareness about the dangers lurking on so-called “conventionally produced” (that is, with chemical pesticides and fertilizers) foods. “There is a growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can have adverse effects on health, especially during vulnerable periods such as fetal development and childhood,” reports author and physician Andrew Weil, a leading voice for so-called integrative medicine combining conventional and alternative medical practices....

The events of 9/11 shook the world. Before that day, we could not imagine that someone would be bold and cruel enough to enact such violence. We could not imagine that two iconic 110-story skyscrapers would collapse in the middle of a U.S. city, gouging and crushing other buildings for hundreds of feet in all directions. We asked ourselves, “How could this possibly happen? How could they collapse?” These are natural questions that express the scope of the loss we felt on that day....

This year’s gadget guide is a doozy. Forged for the first time ever by an alliance of our readers and editors, it is the latest expression of our ongoing experiment in letting the audience join us in the wheelhouse. The result is quirky, fun and speaks for itself, so we’ll quit while we’re ahead and go straight to the goodies we’re hoping to find under this year’s Chrismakwanzukkah bush. Woofer...

DO YOU THINK that your newest acquisition, a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner that traces out its unpredictable paths on your living room floor, is conscious? What about that bee that hovers above your marmalade-covered breakfast toast? Or the newborn who finally fell asleep after being suckled? Nobody except a dyed-in-the-wool nerd would think of the first as being sentient; adherents of Jainism, India’s oldest religion, believe that bees—and indeed all living creatures, small and large—are aware; whereas most everyone would accord the magical gift of consciousness to the baby....

A study released earlier this week indicates that airborne pollution in China may have shortened the lives of 500 million Chinese by 2.5 billion years. The paper, published in PNAS on Monday, examined pollution data and death records to see whether coal burning, long a source of air pollution, could have damaged public health across northern China in the 1990s. The findings raise concern for developing countries across the globe....

Nonstick pans are extremely popular—and it’s not hard to see why. Clean-up is a breeze, thanks to a special coating that keeps food from bonding to the surface of the pan. The nonstick surface also allows you to cook with less (or even no) oil or butter. But are they safe? Most nonstick pans are coated with polytetrafluoroethylene, also known as Teflon. And there are a lot of rumors out there that Teflon might be toxic and that these pans may not be safe to use....

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 • EDUCATION POLICY Scientists, teachers, policy makers and 26 states have created ambitious new science standards that all 50 states and the District of Columbia should adopt....

Sick and tired of wasting time trying to find the perfect shade of makeup, only to discover that it’s a mismatch once you go outside? Good news: getting the right foundation may soon be a mobile phone message away. Hewlett-Packard has developed a new service capable of receiving photos from cell phone cameras, running them through sophisticated image-processing algorithms, and returning scientifically based recommendations for the shade of foundation, lipstick, blush and eye shadow that best suits a person’s skin tone....

The list of promiscuous poets and artists is long, as is the list of poets’ and artists’ children who suffer from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Now new research links creative ability and sexual success–and explains why something as seemingly maladaptive as schizophrenia would persist among humans. Psychologist Daniel Nettle of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England and his colleagues recruited 425 British men and women through advertisements in a small town newsletter and specialty lists for creative types....

(Reuters) - Heavy rainfall could bring flash flooding to Arizona and New Mexico, the National Weather Service said on Wednesday, as severe weather associated with weakening Tropical Storm Odile sweeps across the drought-stricken U.S. Southwest. Weather forecasters warned that as much as 9 inches (23 cm) of rain could fall on some communities by Thursday night, with 3 to 6 inches (8-16 cm) expected across much of the desert region. “This could be one of the wetter tropical cyclones they have ever had in that area,” said David Roth, a forecaster with the NWS Weather Prediction Center in Maryland....

Biologist William K. Purves of Harvey Mudd College offers this explanation: To understand how something can taste sweet and yet add no calories to the diet, we should address two questions. First, what are calories, nutritionally speaking? Second, what constitutes a sweet taste? Calories are a measure of the energy made available when we digest and metabolize food. The energy drives the replacement of molecules we have lost, enables us to move, and so forth; we store excess energy as fat....

The beautiful spinning pinwheel of the Andromeda galaxy, our celestial neighbor, poses a mystery. The breakneck speed of its rotation cannot be explained by applying the known laws of physics to the disk’s visible matter. By rights, the gravity generated by the galaxy’s apparent mass should cause the stars in the periphery to move more slowly than they actually do. If there were nothing more to the galaxy than the visible matter, then Andromeda—and nearly all such fast-rotating galaxies—simply should not exist....

Every 30 minutes, all of the blood in our bodies is filtered through two fist-size kidneys. But diseases such as diabetes can cause them to fail, leading to a build-up of chemicals in the blood that without dialysis (mechanical blood filtration) or a kidney transplant would be fatal. And the wait for a new kidney can be long, unless someone you know is willing to give one of theirs to you....

If you’re Tim Ellis, the CEO of the space launch services start-up Relativity Space, the answer is obvious: You print it. After a stealthy period in which they raised upward of $40 million in venture capital and created a 20,000-square-foot facility in Los Angeles, Relativity Space is now printing and testing ever-larger rocket components. The company’s proprietary rocket engine boasts only two parts instead of the 2,600 it would contain if built via standard industry techniques....

A Twitter account that preemptively alluded to Sunday’s shooting outside a Texas event featuring cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed was linked to ISIS global social media accounts. The account may have belonged to Elton Simpson, an Arizona man known to the FBI from a previous terror investigation. The Twitter account Shariah is Light used the hashtag #texasattack before the violence erupted on Sunday in Garland, Texas, at the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest....

What makes a meme— an idea, a phrase, an image—go viral? For starters, the meme must have broad appeal, so it can spread not just within communities of like-minded individuals but can leap from one community to the next. Researchers, by mining public Twitter data, have found that a meme’s “virality” is often evident from the start. After only a few dozen tweets, a typical viral meme (as defined by tweets using a given hashtag) will already have caught on in numerous communities of Twitter users....

Climate change poses “significant risks” to society, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday, warning that delaying cuts in greenhouse gas emissions will make dealing with the problem harder in the future. “Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted commits us to further change and greater risks,” an academy panel said in a new report, which calls for the federal government to take a lead role in combating climate change at home and abroad....

President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion yesterday that he has an “open mind” about the Paris climate agreement is a sign that he’s adapting to the realities of leading a world power, rather than a campaign, according to observers. His comments to The New York Times struck a softer tone than the one he conveyed in a May energy speech, when he promised to “cancel” the international pact. That steadfast position now appears in flux, at least rhetorically....

Even mentioning the name Peter Duesberg inflames strong feelings, both pro and con. After gaining fame in 1970 as the virologist who first identified a cancer-causing gene, in the 1980s he became the leading scientific torchbearer for the so-called AIDS dissidents who dispute that HIV causes the immunodeficiency disorder. To the dissidents, Duesberg is Galileo, oppressed for proclaiming scientific truth against biomedical dogma. A far larger number of AIDS activists, physicians and researchers, however, think Duesberg has become a crank who refuses to accept abundant proof that he is wrong....

As you read this sentence, you probably think that this moment—right now—is what is happening. The present moment feels special. It is real. However much you may remember the past or anticipate the future, you live in the present. Of course, the moment during which you read that sentence is no longer happening. This one is. In other words, it feels as though time flows, in the sense that the present is constantly updating itself....