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Key concepts Energy Propulsion and thrust Pressure From National Science Education Standards: Motion and forces Introduction Have you ever wondered how a space shuttle launches all the way into outer space? It takes a lot of energy to make such a heavy object (4.5 million pounds at liftoff) go from standing still to blasting off toward space at more than 17,000 miles per hour—in just minutes! For real space launches rocket scientists figured out special fuel to make enough energy to get a heavy shuttle off the ground....

The earth’s four jet streams mark the boundaries of regional climates. In the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, these rivers of high-speed wind persist at the border of warm, tropical air and its cooler counterpart toward the poles. The jet streams push weather across the globe, blessing some areas with abundant rain and desertifying less fortunate regions. Now, new satellite data reveals that the atmosphere is warming most strongly in such boundary regions and potentially shifting regions of wet and dry....

Scientific American presents House Call Doctor by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. This is an unnecessary article. It’s unnecessary because the disease I am going to talk about can be prevented. This disease affects infants and children, and it kills. I am talking about whooping cough, also known as pertussis. What Is Whooping Cough? Pertussis is an infection caused by a bacteria named bordetella pertussis....

You could be forgiven if you thought mumps was no longer a problem in the U.S. That’s because for the past few decades, thanks to widespread use of a vaccine against this contagious virus, it wasn’t. Yet in the past several years increasing numbers of college students and others have started getting mumps again—and 2016 marks the biggest spike in a decade. Seven states (Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Oklahoma) have each reported more than 100 cases this year....

All elite athletes train hard, possess great skills and stay mentally sharp during competition. But what separates a gold medalist from an equally dedicated athlete who comes in 10th place? A small structure deep in the brain may give winners an extra edge. Recent studies indicate that the brain’s insular cortex may help a sprinter drive his body forward just a little more efficiently than his competitors. This region may prepare a boxer to better fend off a punch his opponent is beginning to throw as well as assist a diver as she calculates her spinning body’s position so she hits the water with barely a splash....

Humans show remarkable foresight. From storing food to carrying tools, we can imagine, prepare for and, ultimately, steer the course of the future. Although many animals hoard food or build shelters, there is scant evidence that they ponder the long-term ramifications of their actions or the future more generally. But new research hints that our ape brethren may share our ability to think ahead. Nicholas Mulcahy and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig tested whether our closest great ape relative–the bonobo–and our most distant–the orangutan–share our ability to plan for the future....

“Do I really need to sleep?” As I travel around the world talking about sleep, I am asked this question over and over. The answer has always been clear—yes, everyone needs to do it. Just like hunger, thirst and sexual desire, the urge to sleep is a physiological drive. Exactly what spending a third of our lives unconscious gets us, however, has long mystified scientists. In acknowledging our lack of an answer, Allan Rechtschaffen, one of the world’s foremost sleep researchers, said in 1978, “If sleep does not serve an absolutely vital function, then it is the biggest mistake the evolutionary process has ever made” (emphasis mine)....

A healthy child is not only physically fit but also mentally well. In this special section, we describe cutting-edge therapies for three of the most common psychological problems in children: severe anxiety, disruptive behavior and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Articles in this Special Report Fear Not, Child Children can overcome intense anxiety by being encouraged to do just what they fear most Behave! An interactive parent-training programcan stamp out behavior problemsin kids—and abuse from parents Concentrate A game-style intervention for preschoolers might prevent ADHD from developing, reducing reliance on medications...

Ethiopia is an island of relative calm in a volatile region. Last year the U.S. Agency for International Development called for expanding Ethiopia’s economy and increasing its crop yields as a way of bringing more stability to East Africa. The agency focused on a key crop: the chickpea (Cicer arietinum), which is in high demand as an ingredient in hummus and in nutritional supplements for famine-stricken regions. It is also relatively sustainable to grow: it acts as a natural fertilizer by fixing nitrogen in the soil and demands less water than some other popular crops such as the cereal grass teff....

In December last year, a breast-cancer trial for the experimental drug neratinib captured industry attention — but the buzz was not just about the drug. What was unusual was the trial itself. Known as I-SPY 2, it assesses multiple drug candidates in parallel, instead of the usual practice of one at a time. The approach is part of a wave of efforts to reform the costly and time-consuming process of drug approval that often fails to take into account the complex realities of cancer biology....

WHEN ACCIDENTS snarl traffic and bad weather cripples mass transit, images of frustrated commuters often lead the nightly news. But the normal, everyday insanity that commuters endure is the bigger story. Mobility is a prime mover in today’s job markets. Workers who want to “make it” have to be flexible and willing to take the punishment. Move to another branch office? No problem. Still want that nice house in the country?...

By Brendan O’Brien (Reuters) - Bats in Wisconsin and Michigan have been infected with a disease that has killed millions of the mosquito-eating mammals elsewhere in the U.S. and could have a detrimental impact on farming and forestry, wildlife officials said on Thursday. White-nose syndrome appeared in five small brown bats collected in February and March in northern Michigan during routine surveillance, the state’s Department of Natural Resources said in a statement....

The deepwater submersibles Mir 1 and Mir 2 (eponymous with the deorbited Russian space station and meaning “peace” or “world”) were aptly named—their deployment would stand on par with a space mission in complexity and they certainly caught the “world’s” attention. As a nuclear-powered icebreaker crunched through 10 feet (three meters) of August ice at the North Pole, Russian sailors readied the subs for their 2.5-mile (four-kilometer) descent. A hole opened in the ship’s wake, and the subs were lowered....

No one is sure what is causing bee colonies to die off around the world, but pesticides called neonicotinoids may be part of the problem. Today, Europe’s health commissioner Tonio Borg said the European Commission would go ahead with a continent-wide plan to severely restrict three of the most commonly-used pesticides in an effort to protect bee health. The debate over these pesticides has been fierce. (See ‘Europe debates risk to bees’, Nature, 496, 408 (2013))....

Editor’s note: Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by Daily Climate, presenting short Q&A’s with players large and small in the climate arena. Read others in the series at http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/query/climate-queries. Kim Ritchie fell into coral research as an undergraduate, got a Ph.D. in genetics and was doing post-doctoral research in Panama when she lost her funding. With the ideal training for biotech, however, she slipped right into a startup. But when the company went bankrupt, she jumped back into research....

Grapefruit juice, long known to have dangerous interactions with numerous prescription medications, appears to actually improve the use of a promising cancer drug. Researchers at University of Chicago Medicine found that a glass of grapefruit juice so improved the body’s uptake of a potent drug called sirolimus that they could cut the drug dosage by a third to reach the same desired effect as a full dose. The lower dose meant that patients had far fewer side effects from the drug....

Art Lerner-Lam, associate director for seismology, geology, and tectonophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, explains. Much of our understanding of the basic structure and composition of Earth and the other planets in our solar system is not strenuously debated. We can infer a surprising amount of information from the size, mass and moment of inertia of the planets, all of which can be determined from routine astronomical observations....

SCOTLAND The government announced it will formally ban growing genetically modified crops in the country—counter to England’s plan to embrace GMOs. The foods have been approved as safe by the European Union. CHINA The People’s Liberation Army has trained male macaques to search and destroy birds’ nests near military airfields in northern China. The operation prevents damage to aircraft, which can suck the feathery creatures into their engines, the government says....

Almost everywhere on the planet where combustible green cover exists, wildfires are becoming a bigger risk, new research has found. Fire seasons on an average are almost 20 percent longer today than they were 35 years ago, a study published in Nature Communications says. Areas where combustible vegetation grows that are at risk from wildfires have doubled in this time period. “Conditions across the U.S. are becoming more conducive to fires,” said Matt Jolly, the lead author of the study, who is a scientist with the U....

By Zachary Fagenson MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. proposal to ban the import and interstate sale of boa constrictors and four other snake species prompted protests from exotic pet owners and concern among Florida wildlife regulators who fear it could lead to more reptiles being released into the wild. In Florida, a hotbed for the exotic pet trade where the ban would be keenly felt, an estimated 150,000 Burmese pythons descended from pets have ended up in the wild, wreaking havoc on the ecologically fragile Everglades....