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The consequences of global sea level rise could be even scarier than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the dominant climate models, which don’t fully account for the fast breakup of ice sheets and glaciers, NASA scientists said today (Aug. 26) at a press briefing. What’s more, sea level rise is already occurring. The open question, NASA scientists say, is just how quickly the seas will rise in the future. Rising seas The current warming of the seas and the associated expansion of their waters account for about one-third of sea level rise around the world....

By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO Calif. (Reuters) - A killer whale at SeaWorld is pregnant, the San Diego theme park said Tuesday, a development welcomed by the company but decried by animal rights activists trying to outlaw the breeding of captive orcas and “Shamu” shows that feature them doing tricks. The news of the pregnancy comes weeks after California lawmakers effectively killed a closely watched bill that would have banned SeaWorld from continuing its breeding program and from using killer whales to perform tricks at its California park....

Experts guesstimate that about 50,000 chemicals are used in U.S. consumer products and industrial processes. Why the uncertainty? The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act does not require chemicals to be registered or proven safe before use. Because the Environmental Protection Agency must show, after the fact, that a substance is dangerous, it has managed to require testing of only about 300 substances that have been in circulation for decades. It has restricted applications of five....

When the first genetically modified (GM) organisms were being developed for the farm, says Anastasia Bodnar, “we were promised rocket jet packs” — futuristic, ultra-nutritious crops that would bring exotic produce to the supermarket and help to feed a hungry world. Yet so far, she says, the technology has bestowed most of its benefits on agribusiness — almost always through crops modified to withstand weed-killing chemicals or resist insect pests. This has allowed farmers to increase yields and spray less pesticide than they might have otherwise....

In my Scientific American column this month, I wrote about the dawn of augmented-reality software: phone apps that overlay informational graphics on a live video view of the world. As you hold the phone in front of you, these apps can show you what crimes were committed near the spot where you’re standing, which subway lines are under your feet, what apartments are for sale in the building in front of you, and so on....

Dear EarthTalk: The world added its seven billionth person in 2011, but the news came and went quickly. But isn’t population growth the “elephant in the room” that needs serious attention? Can you outline the major impacts of unchecked population growth and what, if anything, is being done to try to arrest it?—Aaron Rodriguez, Tucson, Ariz. Unchecked human population growth could be a recipe for doom for the planet and its inhabitants....

Hospitals are flush with digital MRI and CT scanners, yet the granddaddies–x-ray machines–are still largely analog. Digital x-ray units are finally making inroads, however, and like digital cameras they are poised to replace century-old film technology. Several imaging methods have arisen [see illustrations]. All work with a conventional x-ray generator, but rather than exposing film that must be developed with chemicals in a darkroom, the receivers create a digital image that is displayed on a screen....

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change removed a reference to indirect land-use change, a point that provoked sharp disagreement in the final Working Group III “Summary for Policymakers” report released yesterday. An earlier version of the report seen by ClimateWire indicates that there is medium evidence in the existing body of scientific studies that “the scientific debate about the marginal emissions of most bioenergy pathways … such as indirect land use change, remains unresolved....

Armed with toothpicks and sour cream, Michael Mazourek and three friends marched into the field of 600 chili pepper plants. One by one, they pierced the habaneros and brought the juices to their tongues, cooling and cleansing their palates with cream now and then. Habaneros are typically some of the hottest chilies around, ranking as high as 350,000 on the Scoville scale of pepper pungency—40 times hotter than the jalapeno. The habaneros Mazourek and his team had grown in this experimental field at Cornell University were in no way typical, however....

By Erik Vance of Nature magazineThe earthquake that hit southern Mexico on March 20 rattled buildings and nerves in the capital, Mexico City, but thankfully caused little damage and no deaths. At magnitude 7.4 it was the strongest quake in the city since the devastating 1985 earthquake that killed 9,500 people. Tuesday’s earthquake struck just after noon, local time, on the coast, near the border between Guerrero and Oaxaca states. Seismic waves then ripped across 322 kilometers in 45 seconds to shake Mexico City....

Vast newly discovered natural gas resources and the expectation that demand for the fuel will rise substantially in fast-growing economies are ushering in a “Golden Age of Gas,” according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Ratcheting up its projections about natural gas consumption, an IEA report yesterday said gas’s share of the global energy mix will surpass coal’s in the next two decades and by 2035, gas demand will increase by more than 50 percent....

By the year 2047 the mean air temperature around the planet will shift completely out of the range seen in recent history. From that point on, even a cold year will be warmer than any warm year from 1860 to 2005 if nations continue to emit carbon dioxide the way they do now. And the new extreme temperatures—the new normal—will first occur not in the Arctic but in the tropics, where people, plants and wildlife are least equipped to adapt....

Patents granted in countries worldwide are booming as companies race to compete in emerging economies. Data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that patents for inventions are skyrocketing at home (light gray bars) and that a rising share is going to foreign concerns (dark pink line) as they take steps to tap huge American markets. “Global patenting is growing as more innovative firms are exporting to the U.S. and more U....

You know that a carrier of an airborne strain of Ebola is about to board a plane where he will share the same stale air with scores of strangers. Do you allow him to risk infecting fellow passengers or do you kill him if that is the only way to prevent him from getting on the flight? Psychologists and neuroscientists (and of course, philosophers) have long pondered such quandaries that come down to whether one person should be sacrificed for the greater good?...

Small gains now or big rewards later? The conundrum plagues every decision we make, whether we are investing or dieting. Now researchers find that men and women use different strategies to make such choices. Researchers use gambling games to understand what we do when immediate rewards are pitted against long-term gains. Most of these games find no major differences in how men and women play. An experimental setup called the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), however, finds consistent—and large—differences between the behavior of men and women: men are better at figuring out the strategy that reaps the bigger payoff....

Fake news and misinformation have been a persistent concern ever since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Despite increased awareness and (apparent) concern from social media companies, the problem has not seemed to dissipate. For example, false content about COVID-19 has proliferated, which has likely had an impact on vaccination intentions, and misinformation about the 2020 presidential election almost certainly played a key role in the storming of Capitol Hill on January 6....

Breast cancer has proved especially difficult to find and fight due to the cancer cells’ ability to blend in with healthy ones. Careful examination of the chemical makeup and shape of normal and diseased cells, however, promises to help doctors draw cancer out of the shadows. Researchers at University of Michigan’s Comprehensive Cancer Center in Ann Arbor report in Cell Stem Cell that they found a marker that can be used to identify cancer stem cells in breast tumors....

Physicists working at Brookhaven National Laboratory announced today that they have created what appears to be a new state of matter out of the building blocks of atomic nuclei, quarks and gluons. The researchers unveiled their findings–which could provide new insight into the composition of the universe just moments after the big bang–today in Florida at a meeting of the American Physical Society. There are four collaborations, dubbed BRAHMS, PHENIX, PHOBOS and STAR, working at Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)....

In the traditional view of human colonization of the Americas, big-game hunters from Asia —the so-called Clovis people —swept quickly across a now submerged landmass called Beringia into North America around 13,000 years ago and hastened south into warmer climes. Over the past decade, however, evidence against this “Clovis First” scenario has mounted, as this article in the November issue describes. The latest geologic and archaeological research indicates that humans entered the New World thousands of years before the Clovis people left behind their distinctive stone tools and suggests two possible migration paths: a coastal route and an early ice-free corridor....

Millions of people—some 2 percent of the U.S. population—experience panic attacks, characterized by sudden fear accompanied by rapid heartbeat, nausea, shaking, numbness, hyperventilating or sweating. Many end up in emergency rooms, believing they are having a heart attack. What is more, one third of patients who visit a cardiologist with atypical chest pain actually suffer from unrecognized panic disorder. Now scientists are trying to identify genetic markers that could help predict who is prone to the terrifying condition and provide a possible avenue for new drugs that could alleviate symptoms....