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Editor’s note (10/9/2012): We are making the text of this article freely available for 30 days because the article was cited by the Nobel Committee as a further reading in the announcement of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics and was also written by one of the prize winners. The full article with images, which appeared in the August 2008 issue, is available for purchase here. Over the past several decades technological advances have dramatically boosted the speed and reliability of computers....

A thousand dollars can buy a lot of things. Scientists hope to soon add an individual’s genetic sequence to that list. Full-genome DNA decoding, estimated to now cost $20 million, could soon be done for about $2.2 million, experts say, and will continue to drop in price as researchers develop new ways to conquer the task. A report published online yesterday by the journal Science suggests one such method: a technique that used off-the-shelf instruments and reagents to successfully sequence the E....

Earth’s climate cannot be replicated in a lab. So to understand how this critical component of the planet’s heat regulation works, scientists must rely on “natural experiments.” Such natural experiments take apocalyptic form, such as the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991 that sent 10 cubic kilometers of ash, gas and other materials sky high. By tracking how this eruption affected the global climate–and determining how to trace its footprint in other records–scientists have turned the catastrophe into a tool for comprehension....

Modern cells are like microscopic cities: They have power plants (mitochondria), trash dumps (lysosomes), local government (the nucleus, with DNA serving as the legal charter), and many other activities going on inside their boundaries. They also have a border patrol in the form of a double-layered membrane that uses a series of protein-powered pumps, pores and channels to let nutrients in and keep other chemicals and substances out. But, cells were very different when life began 3....

Earthquakes, which can damage property and make life difficult above ground, appear to ease fluid flow through the rock under ground. The enhanced permeability could be artificially induced with seismic wave generators to help extract oil from natural reservoirs. “Permeability governs how fluid flows through rocks, whether it’s water or oil, so this has practical implications for oil extraction,” says Emily Brodskyof the University of California, Santa Cruz. Brodsky, along with Jean Elkhoury of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Duncan Agnew of the University of California, San Diego, report their findings today in Nature....

By Lizzie BuchenSudden movements and sounds can trigger a battle between neurons in the brain, and the winners get to decide where an animal will look, according to new research.Working with barn owls, neuroscientists at Stanford University in California found that neurons in the midbrain, which acts as a relay for sensory information, engage in a ‘winner takes all’ battle with one another. To the victors go the owl’s gaze and attention....

An unassuming-looking rod on a rooftop in Beltsville, Md., connected with wires to specialized computer equipment in the building below, is helping scientists pinpoint the location of lightning as it flashes during a thunderstorm. Working in tandem with nine other identical devices installed throughout the Washington, D.C., area, these sensors promise to help usher in a new era of severe weather prediction. Called the Washington D.C. Lightning Mapping Array (DC LMA), the devices detect, in real time, high-frequency radio waves emitted by lightning in the surrounding region....

This story was originally published byInside Science News Service. Throughout most of human history, humans went to bed shortly after the sun went down and woke up in the morning as it rose. There were candles and later oil lamps, but the light was not very bright so people still went to bed early. Then came Thomas Edison and the incandescent light bulb and everything changed, including our sleeping habits. So, if you have problems getting to sleep at night or are a miserable person to be around in the morning, blame him....

Early in the morning on October 2, President Donald Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Only 33 days away from a highly contentious election, the diagnosis plunged the nation into uncertainty. Doctors, scientists and pundits quickly began speculating on what will happen to the president, and the White House has been both tight-lipped and prone to giving conflicting information about the VIP patient. But in general, the course of this disease is no longer a complete black box to medicine....

Recently, the World Economic Forum listed water scarcity as one of the three global systemic risks of highest concern, an assessment based on a broad global survey on risk perception among representatives from business, academia, civil society, governments and international organizations1. Freshwater scarcity manifests itself in the form of declining groundwater tables, reduced river flows, shrinking lakes and heavily polluted waters, but also in the increasing costs of supply and treatment, intermittent supplies and conflicts over water....

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change grabbed the world’s attention in 2018 when it released a sobering report that warned—in no uncertain terms—world leaders needed to take drastic and immediate steps to blunt the most catastrophic impacts of global warming. Policymakers responded with a range of emotion, from denial to outrage. But the message was clear. “It’s like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen,” Erik Solheim, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, told The Washington Post at the time....

A new report raises questions about whether contracting Zika virus in the months after birth may damage an infected newborn’s brain. Researchers at Emory University injected a small number of infant rhesus macaques with the virus five weeks after birth—an age which roughly correlates with Zika exposure in three-month-old human babies—and found that although the monkeys cleared the infection from their blood as expected, the animals developed brain damage and behavioral problems....

What do you do when you can’t figure out how to finish a tricky task at work? Or you’re lost on those back roads? Or you’re trying a new DIY project in your house and just can’t seem to make it look like the photo that inspired you on Pinterest? In life, when you’re stuck in a conundrum, there are many solutions. For example, you could invest more time and effort by brainstorming alternative approaches, using trial-and-error (until you get that paint line just right), or looking up tricks of the trade online....

Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen by Philip Ball University of Chicago Press, 2015 (($27.50)) Humans have always imagined the invisible—whether spirits that are summoned or appeased, intangible ether suffusing the universe, or x-rays, magnetic forces and microbes that can be put to work. Science writer Ball takes readers through history to show how myths and legends of the invisible, along with the science of each time period, have influenced our quest to understand what we cannot see....

California’s Senate leader wants the Golden State to shift to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045, pushing it to lead the country in grabbing that green power goal. Environmentalists are cheering California Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León’s (D) plan to double, and accelerate, the state’s current renewables mandate of 50 percent by 2050. Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio even tweeted his thanks to de León among his 17 million followers....

Toxoplasma gondii is the most widespread parasite on earth, found across all continents and in a staggering variety of habitats. We have only recently discovered how many different animals it infects. To the surprise of many, University of British Columbia scientists found the parasite in beluga whales in the Arctic in 2014. Off the California coast, Toxoplasma infection has been revealed to be responsible for sea otter deaths formerly attributed to sharks or boats....

By Daniel Cressey of Nature magazine A bacterium that some scientists thought could use arsenic in place of phosphorus in its DNA actually goes to extreme lengths to grab any traces of phosphorus it can find. The finding clears up a lingering question sparked by a controversial study, published in Science in 2010, which claimed that the GFAJ-1 microbe could thrive in the high-arsenic conditions of Mono Lake in California without metabolizing phosphorus — an element that is essential for all forms of life....

On a warm, mid-June afternoon a concerned mother brought her 11-year-old daughter, who had a high fever and a severe bellyache, to the emergency room at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, R.I. After doctors ruled out the usual suspects for the symptoms, such as bacterial infections and appendicitis, they started to seriously consider a diagnosis that would have been inconceivable two months prior: an emergent and potentially fatal inflammatory condition that occurs in children about four weeks after they are exposed to the new coronavirus....

With considerable disappointment, the editors of Scientific American are immediately removing Dr. Woo Suk Hwang from his honored position as Research Leader of the Year on the 2005 Scientific American 50 list. Dr. Hwang famously announced in Science last June that he and his team at Seoul National University in Korea had cloned human embryonic stem cells from 11 patients. Published accounts appearing this morning, however, report that one of his co-authors, Dr....

By Valerie VolcoviciWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. environmental regulator argued in court on Tuesday that its rule limiting mercury and hazardous air pollutants is “appropriate and necessary,” not an improper interpretation of the federal Clean Air Act as industry groups and some states contend.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second most powerful court in the country behind the Supreme Court, heard two cases challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s first rules to crack down on mercury from the country’s fleet of electric generating units....