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A battery made of molten metals could help to make sources of renewable energy more viable by storing the excess electricity generated by these intermittent sources. In a paper published on September 21in Nature, researchers describe how by replacing the magnesium in an earlier molten-metal battery with lead they obtained a device that runs at lower temperatures — which could make the technology more competitive for large-scale use on the electric grid....

The amount of carbon in our planet’s oceans has varied slowly over the ages. But 31 times in the past 542 million years the carbon level has deviated either much more than normal or much faster than usual (dots in main graph). Each of the five great mass extinctions occurred during the same time as the most extreme carbon events (pink dots). In each case, more than 75 percent of marine animal species vanished....

One of the earliest attempts to estimate the number of genes in the human genome involved tipsy geneticists, a bar in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and pure guesswork. That was in 2000, when a draft human genome sequence was still in the works; geneticists were running a sweepstake on how many genes humans have, and wagers ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Almost two decades later, scientists armed with real data still can’t agree on the number—a knowledge gap that they say hampers efforts to spot disease-related mutations....

Produced with support from: Ceres2030: Sustainable Solutions to End Hunger. This article is editorially independent, produced with financial support from a third party. Nature collection: Sustainable solutions to end hunger It’s 4 p.m. on a Friday, and dozens of children have begun to line up outside a home in a street in Delft, a working-class neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa. On a busy day, the queue will grow to be hundreds of metres long, sometimes snaking off into other streets....

As the source of the most powerful natural hallucinogen known, salvia is drawing scrutiny from U.S. authorities who want to restrict this Mexican herb, now used recreation­ally by some. But neuro­scientists worry that controlling it before studies have determined its safety profile is premature and could hamper research of the drug’s medicinal value. Increasingly, evidence is piling up that it could lead to new and safer anti­depressants and pain relievers, as well as even help in improving treatments for such mental illnesses as schizophrenia and addiction....

Excitement about the August 21, 2017, eclipse is as hot as a star, but solar eclipses happen at least twice a year, when the orbits of the moon and Earth align with the sun. What is unusual this time is that the moon will totally block the sun, instead of doing so partially, and that the strip of darkness cast on Earth will fall on millions of people rather than plankton out at sea or polar bears or penguins at the poles....

SLEAFORD, England – Mark Ireland doesn’t know whether it is due to the weather or climate change, but one thing he is certain of is that over the past 25 years, a great deal has changed along the furrows of his farm in southeast Lincolnshire. Farmers have always been gamblers, betting on the weather year after year, but climate change appears to be thrusting them into games with Mother Nature that they’ve never played before....

Imagine you are with some friends at a concert, and the bouncer approaches the group and says that, because you are all looking so ravishing tonight, he’s been instructed to offer one of you—just one!—a backstage pass to meet the artist. Do you raise your hand? For most people, this would be a no-brainer: who wouldn’t leap at the chance to meet a famous singer or secure a long-sought autograph? The results of a recent study, published in Psychological Science by Gus Cooney, Daniel Gilbert, and Timothy Wilson, however, suggest taking a second’s pause before snapping up that backstage pass....

Wheelchairs and windmills are among the winners of the 2010 World changing ideas Video contest, sponsored by Scientific American and sciVee.tv, the online science video site. the entries showcase innovative ways to build a cleaner, healthier or safer world. WINNER The Leveraged Freedom Chair Idea: MIT Mobility Lab Video: Amos Winter and the MIT News Office This wheelchair features a lever-powered, geared drivetrain that takes it over sand, dirt and rough terrain often confronted in developing countries....

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but when he returned from ‘cross the seas, did he bring with him a new disease? New skeletal evidence suggests Columbus and his crew not only introduced the Old World to the New World, but brought back syphilis as well, researchers say. Syphilis is caused by Treponema pallidum bacteria, and is usually curable nowadays with antibiotics. Untreated, it can damage the heart, brain, eyes and bones; it can also be fatal....

Actions taken in response to goals set by the United Nations have reduced the deaths of children younger than five from 93 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 39 in 2018. Low- and middle-income countries, which generally have higher under-5 mortality rates (U5MR) than their richer counterparts, have achieved some of the largest decreases. A recent paper in Nature suggests there is more to the story, however. Researchers who studied local U5MR rates in districts, counties, states and provinces within 99 low- and middle-income nations from 2000 to 2017 found great variability within many countries—especially those with particularly high or low rates overall....

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, which causes severe liver disease and chronically infects more than 70 million people worldwide. The prize was jointly awarded to American researchers Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice and British-born scientist Michael Houghton. Three hepatitis viruses are known to infect the liver: Hepatitis A is transmitted by water or contaminated food, and it causes a short-term infection that is typically resolved within weeks....

Fourteen contestants of all shapes and sizes are vying to win U.S. EPA’s version of the televised weight-loss competition “The Biggest Loser.” Each will go on a diet with online tips from the show’s fitness trainer, Bob Harper. A final weigh-in will decide the contest in October. That’s where the similarities end. The contestants are not overweight people, but buildings, including a New York City high-rise office building, a Colorado elementary school and a Minnesota mall....

As the largest outbreak of yellow fever in almost 30 years continues to spread in Angola, scientists are warning that the world is ill-prepared for what would be a public-health calamity: the re-emergence of urban epidemics of the deadly infection, which could overwhelm vaccine stockpiles. Yellow fever virus caused devastating outbreaks in cities in the past, but by the 1970s its mosquito carrier in urban areas—Aedes aegypti—had been wiped from large swathes of the globe; vaccination programmes also helped to confine the virus to the jungle....

If your children are like 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls, they play video games. And, if they are like 50 percent of boys and 14 percent of girls, they prefer games with “mature” – read: violent – themes, such as Grand Theft Auto, an urban dystopia of gun fights, car chases, pole dancers and prostitutes, where blood splatters realistically on the “camera lens.” Should you worry whether such a game will warp your children’s minds?...

By Brendan BorrellThe toxins produced by some algal blooms may have evolved to give predatory algae an advantage when it comes to capturing their prey, researchers say. Knowing how algae use toxins in nature could help scientists who are trying to predict when and where the devastating blooms, sometimes called “red tides,” are going to strike.Single-celled algae called dinoflagellates are one of the organisms responsible for harmful algal blooms that poison shellfish and leave fish floating belly-up....

People with a rare genetic disorder known as Prader-Willi syndrome never feel full, and this insatiable hunger can lead to life-threatening obesity. Scientists studying the problem have now found that the fist-shaped structure known as the cerebellum—which had not previously been linked to hunger—is key to regulating satiation in those with this condition. This finding is the latest in a series of discoveries revealing that the cerebellum, long thought to be primarily involved in motor coordination, also plays a broad role in cognition, emotion and behavior....

Don’t be fooled by the rigid feel and appearance of a skeleton. The 206 bones in the human body not only support it but are in a constant state of flux, breaking down and rebuilding themselves as well as manufacturing blood cells in their marrow. But that is not all they do. A new study shows that the skeleton is also an endocrine organ involved in energy metabolism, and as such may play a role in weight gain and loss: Bones regulate glucose (blood sugar) by secreting osteocalcin, a hormone that enhances insulin activity and reduces obesity and type 2 diabetes in mice....

Unleashing a nuclear bomb would cause untold death and disfigurement. But society tends to forget. It has been more than 60 years since the U.S. dropped two terrible bombs on Japan and more than 15 years since the cold war between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union ended, and government commitment to avoiding nuclear war may be fading. Although the likelihood of a missile exchange between the U.S. and Russia has lessened considerably, it has not vanished....

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a special report on the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016 produced by the World Economic Forum. The list, compiled by the Forum’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies, highlights technological advances its members, including Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina, believe have the power to improve lives, transform industries and safeguard the planet. It also provides an opportunity to debate any human, societal, economic or environmental risks and concerns that the technologies may pose prior to widespread adoption....