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President Trump’s decision to yank the United States from the Paris climate agreement spurred a rallying cry from environmentalists committed to meeting the accord’s goals anyway. Too late, say the researchers behind a pair of studies published yesterday in Nature Climate Change. Climate modeling and observational data suggest the world is already on track to reach dangerous levels of warming by the end of the century, according to the two papers....

That’s why the Obama Administration convened a panel of local, state and tribal leaders last year to advise the federal government on how to guide and improve climate adaptation efforts and resiliency planning. On Monday, that panel presented a 46-page report containing more than 100 of suggestions to White House officials, ranging from a need for a compendium of adaptation case studies and best practices to changes in how the insurance industry works....

By Mike McDonald GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A strong earthquake shook the Guatemalan border with Mexico on Monday, killing at least three people, damaging dozens of buildings and triggering landslides. The magnitude 7.1 quake struck the Guatemalan border region of San Marcos, which was also hit by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in November 2012 that killed 48 people. Cracks opened up in buildings, there were landslides causing roadblocks, and power lines came down in the area after the early morning quake, authorities said....

When atmospheric scientist Thomas Lauvaux briefed Pennsylvania State officials on his measurements of local methane emissions four years ago, he converted the potentially dry list of numbers into a smattering of reddish bars on a map of the state. Emissions hotspots—from coal mines near Pittsburgh and farmland in the state’s southeast—clearly jumped out. Lauvaux sensed that such visualizations of the otherwise invisible gas plumes could help policymakers and industry leaders zero in on the sources of the greenhouse gases, particularly methane, that are fueling the world’s worsening climate crisis....

Editor’s Note: We’re posting this story from our June 2003 issue because of a new study of the phenomenon. Key Concepts The heart-lung machine, first used on humans in 1953, revolutionized coronary surgery by giving doctors an hour or more to operate on a still heart. Previous techniques allowed only 15 minutes. Since the inception of the machine, medicine has recorded cognitive decline inpatients hooked up to it. The condition, later nicknamed “pumphead,” was thought to be short-lived and was often attributed to the general trauma of surgery....

A Cosmic Controversy The origins of space and time are among the most mysterious and contentious topics in science. Our February 2017 article “Pop Goes the Universe” argues against the dominant idea that the early cosmos underwent an extremely rapid expansion called inflation. Its authors instead advocate for another scenario—that our universe began not with a bang but with a bounce from a previously contracting cosmos. In the letter below, a group of 33 physicists who study inflationary cosmology respond to that article....

How much is too much chocolate? Desperately devouring 5 percent of one’s body weight might sound extreme, but scientists tinkering with the brain chemistry of rodents have found it’s certainly possible. Scientists at the University of Michigan (U.M.) have identified how a brain region plays a role in our pursuit of sweet temptations. As they describe in the September 20 issue of Current Biology, a surge of chemical compounds resembling opium in this area can trigger the impulse to gorge on a treat without restraint....

As countless photos from space can attest, Earth is round—the “Blue Marble,” as astronauts have affectionately dubbed it. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Planet Earth is not, in fact, perfectly round. This is not to say Earth is flat. Well before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Aristotle and other ancient Greek scholars proposed that Earth was round. This was based on a number of observations, such as the fact that departing ships not only appeared smaller as they sailed away but also seemed to sink into the horizon, as one might expect if sailing across a ball says geographer Bill Carstensen of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg....

By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) – Counter to the fears of some parents (and a few doctors), teen girls who are vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) do not go on to catch more sexually transmitted diseases than their peers, according to a large new study. Some parents have been hesitant to have their teens vaccinated for fear that they would be emboldened to have more, and riskier, sex – the kind that can put them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)....

THE MOST IMPORTANT SHIPPING EVENT in North Atlantic history was the creation of the International Mercantile Marine company (IMM) in 1902. This giant shipping trust was the brainchild of the Philadelphia Quaker shipping magnate Clement Acton Griscom and was made possible by the financial backing of the New York banker J. P. Morgan. Among the many U.S., Belgian, British, Dutch and German lines controlled by the IMM, certainly the most famous among the British-flag steamship lines was the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company—more commonly known as the White Star Line....

De cat came back—thought she were a goner, But de cat came back for it wouldn’t stay away. —Lyrics from “The Cat Came Back,” a song written by Harry S. Miller in 1893. It’s a story that tugs at the heartstrings of all pet devotees: A cat given up for lost in 1995 has come home. As first reported by The Press Democrat, a gray and brown-tinged kitty with round, golden eyes named George was reunited with his Santa Rosa, Calif....

Bats have an image problem. Throughout much of the world, they “often are associated with the devil, the underworld and the supernatural,” write Michael J. Harvey, J. Scott Altenbach and Troy L. Best, authors of the new field guide Bats of the United States and Canada (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). In fact, these flying mammals are among the most agriculturally and ecologically beneficial of animals, consuming vast numbers of insects, dispersing seeds, and pollinating plants....

In revamping Medicare, one of the first preventive practices President George W. Bush put under the national health care policy was glaucoma testing, beginning in 2002. After all, screening people at high risk of developing the chronic eye disease had been common practice for decades. Then, in 2005, a government-sponsored panel of experts found that it could not make any definitive recommendation about glaucoma screening. The surprising conclusion sparked a debate over the risks and benefits of screening for the disorder....

By Emma MarrisThe United Nations is setting up a body to monitor global ecology modeled on its influential climate panel. Last week, representatives from 85 countries gathered in Busan, South Korea, to approve the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which will operate much like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.According to the document hammered out on June 11, the IPBES will conduct periodic assessments of Earth’s biodiversity and ’ecosystem services’–ecosystems outputs, such as fresh water, fish, game, timber and a stable climate, that benefit humankind....

Three years ago, a team of psychologists challenged 180 students with a spatial puzzle. The students could ask for a hint if they got stuck. But before the test, the researchers introduced some subtle interventions to see whether these would have any effect. The psychologists split the volunteers into three groups, each of which had to unscramble some words before doing the puzzle. One group was the control, another sat next to a pile of play money and the third was shown scrambled sentences that contained words relating to money....

When someone searches YouTube for a health-related term such as “COVID-19,” most results will now prominently feature content from government agencies and health care organizations that the platform trusts to provide reliable information. The World Health Organization, the Mayo Clinic and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are among the channels the platform has deemed “credible” sources of health information, based on guidelines developed by a panel of experts. YouTube says the new approach is the first step in a larger strategy....

NOVEMBER 1961 Teaching Machines “Like all useful machines, the teaching machines developed slowly from the need to do a job more effectively than it could be done otherwise. They have evoked all the reactions, including the hostile ones, that we have learned to expect from a new kind of machine. Some people see the machines as a threat to the teacher, which they are not. Some fancy that they will make education a cold, mechanical process....

Each year hundreds of the best and brightest researchers gather in Lindau, Germany, for the Nobel Laureate Meeting. There, the newest generation of scientists mingles with Nobel Prize winners and discusses their work and ideas. The 2013 meeting is dedicated to chemistry and will involve young researchers from 78 different countries. In anticipation of the event, which will take place from June 30 through July 5, we are highlighting a group of attendees under 30 who represent the future of chemistry....

Water trickles off blue-white glaciers in Greenland in the opening scenes of Al Gore’s new film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which opens to limited release on July 28 in New York City and Los Angeles, and widely on August 4. The rapidly melting Arctic is a fitting place to begin the documentary, which offers up exotic places, tough debates and a thorough update on climate change’s advancement since Gore’s original film....

Synthetic biology garnered national headlines in May 2010 when a team led by J. Craig Venter announced it had created the world’s first “synthetic cell." The group used computers to copy an entire bacterial genome that, when inserted into a cell whose own genome had been removed, “booted up” the cell, which then passed the synthesized genome to its offspring. This accomplishment was no small feat but the new genome, although man-made, was almost entirely a replication of one that already existed in nature....