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People infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) face a long road of drug treatment that, in the best cases, can cure their infections and allow their livers to recover from HCV-associated liver disease, whose symptoms range from scarring and cancer to organ failure. Unfortunately, for nearly half of those treated for the most common strain of HCV, the standard antiviral drugs do not succeed in clearing the virus. And, even in cases where the drug regime is effective, flulike symptoms, depression and anemia are common side effects during the 48-week treatment period....

In 1985 scientists reported something very unsettling: They had found a hole in the planet’s ozone layer over Antarctica. The culprits, they said, were humans emitting chemicals that depleted atmospheric ozone above the South Pole and the rest of the globe. Because the ozone layer protects us and other organisms from harmful solar radiation, the international community united in 1987 to sign the Montreal Protocol, which phased out use of such chemicals....

A protein found in fat tissue may keep the body’s immune system from treating food like a foreign invader, says a new study appearing in the May 4 issue of Cell. The finding could help doctors determine if a person is more susceptible to developing insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes or heart disease. One day it could also lead to a treatment capable of severing the link between these illnesses and overeating or obesity....

Food for hungry mouths, feed for animals headed to the slaughterhouse, fiber for clothing and even, in some cases, fuel for vehicles—all derive from global agriculture. As a result, in the world’s temperate climes human agriculture has supplanted 70 percent of grasslands, 50 percent of savannas and 45 percent of temperate forests. Farming is also the leading cause of deforestation in the tropics and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to the ongoing maul of species known as the “sixth extinction,” and a perennial source of nonrenewable groundwater mining and water pollution....

What do a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell learning toy, a vintage 1980s Casio keyboard and a Little Tikes toy megaphone have in common? All can be dismantled, rewired and transformed into musical instruments through a process known as “circuit bending.” View slideshow Circuit benders recently congregated in New York City for the fifth annual Bent Festival, where experienced benders as well as novices were able to repurpose a variety of electronic devices, coaxing from them drones, whistles and bleeps that are often played in concert to create something akin to music....

Dear EarthTalk: A friend of mine in Connecticut raves about the “Green Drinks” events she attends there every month to meet up with other eco-interested locals. How can I find out if there are any such gatherings in my area? – Janet McIntosh, Dubuque, Iowa Every month green-minded people in 460-plus cities around the world meet up at informal social gatherings called Green Drinks. Started in 1989 in London by Edwin Datschefski and friends, the concept has spread like wildfire, with some 350 different Green Drinks chapters worldwide today....

What if you could build a brick fence in your backyard that would offset a portion of your daily carbon dioxide emissions, such as those produced on your drive home from work? Would you do it? Ronald Dorn, professor of geography at Arizona State University in Tempe, would. Except the fence he has in mind wouldn’t be just constructed from any old brick. It would be coated with calcium or magnesium and inhabited by a colony of ants....

Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation’s geology as an invisible dumping ground. No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia....

For many reasons, breeding cheetahs is difficult. Because most of the species died leaving only a small number left to repopulate in the wild some 10,000 years ago, today’s cheetah population suffers from low genetic diversity. All living cheetahs are between 5 and 10 percent genetically alike; this similarity manifests itself in poor sperm quality, increased disease susceptibility and high infant mortality. To make matters worse females are picky about which mates they choose and have delicate reproductive cycles....

By Monya Baker, Nature magazineA battle over genetically modified (GM) foods in California is turning into an expensive war. Agribusinesses and food manufacturers last week pledged US$13 million to the campaign against a proposition that would require food to carry labels noting its GM content.The money swells the opponents’ coffers to $25 million, promising months of campaigning before the public vote on the proposal in November. Supporters of Proposition 37, including organic farmers and environmentalists, have so far raised less than $2....

The continuing economic crisis in the U.S. and Europe is quickly sharpening the debate over public finances. Several countries have budget deficits around 10 percent of national income or larger, and their governments must show their publics and the financial markets that they have a plan for dealing with these unprecedented peacetime imbalances. In the wake of the financial panic in late 2008, most economies adopted fiscal stimulus packages of spending increases and tax cuts in keeping with Keynesian ideas (which I cautioned about in my March 2009 column)....

Editor’s Note: “Climate at Your Doorstep” is an effort by The Daily Climate to highlight stories about climate change impacts happening now. Find more stories like this at www.dailyclimate.org/doorstep. Help build the next generation of science journalism and support more reporting like this by donating to the Daily Climate’s Kickstarter campaign. Richard Gardiner had no option but to shut down his law practice in Fairfax, Va. in the summer of 2012....

About 20 years ago I had wonderful moments when research takes an unexpected but fruitful turn. I had been studying toddler memory and was beginning a new experiment with two-and-a-half- and three-year-olds. For the project, I had built a small-scale model of a room that was part of my lab. The real space was furnished like a standard living room, with an upholstered couch, an armchair, a cabinet, and so on....

A sojourn in space is a great way to ruin one’s physique — the microgravity results in dramatic loss of muscle mass. Residents of the International Space Station exercise regularly to stave off the atrophy, but perhaps there’s another way. Scientists have now found that if they treat spacefaring mice with a particular molecule, the animals not only maintain their muscles, they even bulk up a bit. The treatment also preserved and boosted bone density, another problem in microgravity, researchers reported September 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

Central Park means a lot of things to New Yorkers: playground, meeting place, natural oasis, arts venue and movie set, to name just a few. Soon it will gain another title: living laboratory — specifically a research site to study how climate change affects urban parks. Under a collaboration between the Yale School of the Environment and two New York City-based nonprofits, researchers will monitor, map and analyze changing climate conditions in the 843-acre park to better understand how warming affects trees, plants, wildlife and the tens of thousands of humans who use it every day....

Although the swine flu outbreak of 2009 is still in full swing, this global influenza epidemic, the fourth in 100 years, is already teaching scientists valuable lessons about pandemics past, those that might have been and those that still might be. Evidence accumulated this summer indicates that the novel H1N1 swine flu virus was not entirely new to all human immune systems. Some researchers have even come to see the current outbreak as a flare-up in an ongoing pandemic era that started when the first H1N1 emerged in 1918....

Moonstruck madness has long been relegated to the annals of folklore, but new findings raise questions about if the moon may actually hold some sway over human sleep patterns. At the very least, it would be a promising explanation for why you’re tired today. A new study finds that around the full moon humans get less shut-eye and their slumber is not as deep, even if sleep is restricted to windowless rooms free of environmental and time-based cues—such as those found in a sleep lab....

Scientists are protesting against the state of Louisiana’s decision to effectively ban people who have recently returned from Ebola-affected areas from attending a major meeting in New Orleans. On October 29, Louisiana officials told organizers of the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that recent returnees from the three West African nations most affected by the Ebola outbreak would be asked not to attend the meeting, which is to be held from November 2 to 6....

Thick, wooly carpets of “rock snot” algae proliferating across eastern Canada may be driven by climate change, according to a new study. Previously, many water managers in the region had believed that the algae blooms of the diatom Didymosphenia geminata – which resemble blobs of wet toilet paper or shag rugs – resulted from an invasive species problem starting in the mid-2000s that could be fixed by regular washing of fishing gear and other sanitation measures....

A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa faces a lifetime of health risks, but none more challenging than surviving its first five years. A major reason for that is malaria, a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes. Of the more than one million malaria deaths worldwide annually, roughly 90 percent are in children under five years of age and as many as 50 percent of the severe cases occur in babies under 18 months of age....