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During a 24-hour period humans experience a rise and dip in the production of most hormones and neurotransmitters (the chemicals that relay signals between nerve cells). This daily cycle is referred to as the body’s circadian rhythm and is regulated by both internal systems and external stimuli, the most powerful of which is visible light. In an effort to gauge exactly how light affects our body clocks, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center (LRC) in Troy, N....

A “Wiki Weapon” project took its first steps toward making a fully 3D printable gun by test-firing an assault rifle made with just one 3D-printed part. On the sixth shot, disaster struck for the gun. The AR-15 assault rifle snapped in two when a Wiki Weapon project member tried to check it on the sixth shot, according to a blog post spotted by Wired’s Danger Room. That failure during the Dec....

The manipulation of sound waves has led to critical technologies such as ultrasound imaging. Alessandro Spadoni and Chiara Daraio of the California Institute of Technology have now developed a new type of acoustic lens to make sound waves even more powerful. Acoustic lenses focus sound in much the same way optical lenses focus light. Instead of using glass and mirrors, the duo designed an acoustic lens using 21 rows of 21 stainless-steel spheres....

It is unlikely that this year’s Oscar ceremony will include an award for best animated actor in a film. But that has not stopped movie companies from pushing the boundaries of animation to make their synthetic characters seem as real as possible—even if those characters happen to be shape-shifting megaton robots, as in last summer’s Transformers special effects extravaganza. The prospect of turning a lineup of toy action figures into a live-action film that kids would want to see (and their parents would want to take them to) was daunting, admits Industrial Light & Magic’s (ILM) Scott Benza, the animation supervisor for Transformers....

In its modern incarnation, South Carolina’s picturesque Charleston Harbor hosts a wide variety of marine birds—from the pelicans and cormorants that forage in its estuaries to the gulls and herons that breed and nest on its offshore islands and the songbirds that pass through en route to warmer climes for the winter months. Around 25 million years ago, however, dragons ruled the Carolina skies. These beasts were not the monsters of medieval folklore, of course, but rather evolution’s closest facsimiles, fearsome in their own right: giant flying birds with wings longer than those of some light aircraft and beaks equipped with deadly, spearlike choppers....

It demolished houses, flattened forests, tossed cars like baseballs and flipped a parked fighter jet. But for Mark Bowen, the worst thing about Hurricane Michael was when it knocked out cellphone service for more than a week. “It was absolutely devastating both to the community and to the first responders that protect this community,” said Bowen, head of emergency services in Bay County, Fla., which was slammed by the Category 5 hurricane in October 2018....

For two decades now China has been Asia’s juggernaut. It builds whole cities from scratch, leads the world in energy construction and has grown its economy by nearly 10 percent a year. Breakneck growth has not been confined to the economy—China has also become a scientific research world power in a remarkably short time. The mainland’s universities have undergone a dramatic expansion. In 1978 China had only 860,000 students in higher education—a mere 1....

New York City has nearly one million buildings—many of them woefully energy inefficient. Insulation is spotty at best, single-paned windows leak heat in winter and cool air in summer, and the untold millions of electric appliances they hold suck energy from the grid—many even when turned off. As a result, buildings contribute 79 percent of the Big Apple’s 60 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to the Mayor’s Long-Term Planning and Sustainability Office; the remaining 21 percent stems from cars, trucks and mass transit....

A few months ago the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that up to 1.4 million people in Liberia and Sierra Leone could become infected with Ebola by mid-January. In a recent address to the Senate, CDC director Tom Frieden said that worst-case scenario would not pan out. That is partly because health care workers in the Ebola hot zone are engaged in a battle to contain the epidemic....

New York doctor Craig Spencer is now Ebola-free and released from quarantine. And last month, Maine officials decided to allow Kaci Hickox to roam free. Hickox—the Doctors Without Borders nurse who was initially quarantined in a tent near Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey after returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone—had twice tested negative for the virus and had defiantly fought attempts to limit her movements, first in New Jersey and then in Maine....

PASADENA, Calif.—The ExoMars 2016 mission is in business despite the apparent failure of its lander to touch down softly on the Red Planet Wednesday (Oct. 19), European Space Agency (ESA) officials stressed. The lander, known as Schiaparelli, seems to have deployed its parachute too early and fired its thrusters for an insufficient amount of time as it streaked through the Martian atmosphere Wednesday, ESA officials said. Still, ExoMars team members continue to analyze data and have not yet officially declared the lander dead....

Hurricanes could become more prevalent with climate change, but the economic pain they deliver might not be recognized as man-made for 260 years. That means smashed homes and ruined roads may not be attributable to greenhouse gases for centuries, according to new research that suggests climate policies like adaptation should be designed without financial evidence of climate-enhanced windstorms. The researchers also warn environmentalists and policymakers against making claims that damage from Hurricane Katrina and other storms are rising from carbon dioxide emissions....

Activists are hoping the next four years will represent a new era for U.S. climate action. President-elect Joe Biden has outlined an ambitious climate plan aimed at achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. And he’s pledged to immediately reenter the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement. The election won’t only affect climate mitigation. Basic climate and environmental research also stands to benefit. Over the last four years, the Trump administration has undermined climate science at federal agencies, including by suppressing research and filling top leadership positions with officials who question or reject the tenets of global warming....

Satellite imagery might yet locate Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which went missing during a nighttime flight on March 8. Over the weekend, the governments of France and China said they had identified debris, possibly from the civilian airliner, in the southern Indian Ocean. Australian officials issued a similarly hopeful statement Thursday, but despite the best efforts of search teams, no confirmed wreckage has been found so far (although the Malaysian government certainly believes that MH370 went down in the area)....

More and more people consider smoking marijuana harmless or even beneficial, but mounting research suggests women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid it altogether. That’s according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which cites growing evidence of marijuana’s potential harm to children’s long-term development. The strong direction to women and pediatricians comes as more than half of states, including California, have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, and studies show that a growing number of babies are being exposed to the drug....

By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Air quality in New Delhi will deteriorate to “severe” levels this week when Indians set off firecrackers to celebrate the Hindu festival of lights, a government scientist said, leaving many at risk of respiratory problems. The warning, based for the first time on India’s newly launched national Air Quality Index, is significant as New Delhi dismissed a World Health Organization study in May which found the capital to have the world’s worst air pollution....

Astronauts get new duds It’s fashion week for future astronauts. NASA this week chose a contractor to make spiffy new spacesuits for astronauts on the post-shuttle Constellation program, which the agency hopes will take U.S. space travelers back to the moon by 2020. The current space shuttle fleet faces mandatory retirement in 2010, and Constellation missions are set to begin in 2015. NASA has already awarded contracts for the program’s Orion crew capsule and the Ares 1 rocket to launch it....

Procrastination is a well-known and serious behavioral problem involving both practical and psychological implications. Taxpayers commonly put off submitting their annual returns until the last minute, risking mathematical errors in their frenzy to file. Lawmakers notoriously dawdle and filibuster before enacting sometimes rash and ill-advised legislation at the eleventh hour. And, students burn the midnight oil to get their term papers submitted before the impending deadline, precluding proper polishing and proofreading....

In 1981 researchers removed a long tube of ice from the center of a glacier in southern Greenland at a site known as Dye 3. More than a mile (two kilometers) long, the deep end of the core sample had been crushed by the pressure of the ice above it and sullied by contact with rock and soil. By destroying the pattern of annual layers, this contamination seemingly made it impossible to assess the region’s ancient climate....

Nestled at the southern tip of Ross Island, just off the Antarctic coast, lies one of the most remote towns in the world. McMurdo Station is the main U.S. outpost in Antarctica, built on an outcropping of rugged volcanic rock. McMurdo Station has no permanent residents—just a revolving door of visiting scientists and temporary personnel, some of whom live there for up to a year at a time. At its most populous, typically during the summer, it houses about 1,000 people....