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Stephen Pratt, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences, knows the answer as well as anyone. He runs Pratt Lab, where researchers study how insect societies source food, build nests, and generally get along. The very short answer, he said, is that ants use collective, decentralized intelligence to perform complex tasks. It helps that they also lack an instinct for self-preservation and are focused only on actions that advance the group’s missions....

A new high-throughput screening technique has uncovered two antibodies that wipe out a wide spectrum of different HIV strains. The targets of these antibodies – and the method used to find them – could lead to a much-needed HIV vaccine that confers broad protection against the virus.“If a vaccine can elicit neutralizing antibodies like the ones discovered here, it would have a strong chance of being effective,” says John Mascola, a virologist at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved in the study....

By Eric Hand of Nature magazineThe Gemini Observatory’s star has been slow to rise. The publicly funded observatory boasts two of the world’s largest telescopes, and offers a rare opportunity to watch both the northern and southern skies from sites in Hawaii and in Chile. Yet it has lagged in terms of scientific productivity since it opened in 2000, and millions of dollars have been spent on overambitious, highly specialized instruments that were ultimately cancelled....

Although climate change continues to stir up opportunities and challenges for animals across the world, new research published today in Nature shows the ups and down this change is creating for one species in particular. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) The study analyzed the Antarctic fur seal population of South Georgia Island, which was observed over the last three decades, to see how climate change is affecting the species....

Scientific American presents Nutrition Diva by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Nutrition Diva reader Thomas writes: “Some people claim that the body can’t absorb more than 20-30 grams of protein at a time. Others insist that your body utilizes all the protein you take in. Who is right? Is a post-workout shake with 50 grams of protein a waste?” This idea that the body can only utilize a certain amount of protein at one sitting has become widely accepted nutrition lore....

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the farthest-ever view into the universe, a photo that reveals thousands of galaxies billions of light-years away. The picture, called eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, combines 10 years of Hubble telescope views of one patch of sky. Only the accumulated light gathered over so many observation sessions can reveal such distant objects, some of which are one ten-billionth the brightness that the human eye can see....

Artificial intelligence is already making significant inroads in taking over mundane, time-consuming tasks many humans would rather not do. The responsibilities and consequences of handing over work to AI vary greatly, though; some autonomous systems recommend music or movies; others recommend sentences in court. Even more advanced AI systems will increasingly control vehicles on crowded city streets, raising questions about safety—and about liability, when the inevitable accidents occur. But philosophical arguments over AI’s existential threats to humanity are often far removed from the reality of actually building and using the technology in question....

Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is nearly home. Having collected samples from the asteroid Ryugu last year, the spacecraft is just months away from returning them to Earth. The samples contain material that likely dates back to the dawn of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago. They could provide fresh insights into how celestial bodies came to be and even how life on Earth began. But before all that, there is the small matter of getting Hayabusa2’s precious cargo down from the harsh vacuum of space and safely into scientists’ hands....

Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety by Joseph LeDoux Viking, 2015 ($28.95) Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall is not Hollywood’s typical leading man. Alvy Singer may be charming and witty, but he is so preoccupied with the minutiae of his diet, past romantic debacles and the eventuality of his death that he ultimately drives away his girlfriend, Annie. Allen was one of several cultural figures to embrace anxiety in the 1960s—it was “the centrifugal force of his cinematic humor,” according to LeDoux, a world-renowned expert on memory and emotion and professor at New York University....

Chairs: we sit in them, work in them, shop in them, eat in them and date in them. Americans sit for most of their waking hours, 13 hours every day on average. Yet chairs are lethal. This grim conclusion may surprise you, but 18 studies reported during the past 16 years, covering 800,000 people overall, back it up. In 2010, for example, the journal Circulation published an investigation following 8,800 adults for seven years....

Dear EarthTalk: What were the environmental impacts of the huge coal ash spill in Tennessee this past December? – Dave S, Lynnfield, MA Environmentalists’ call for an end to the age of coal—one of the dirtiest and most common of all the fossil fuels we now use—took on new urgency this past December when some 525 million gallons of wet coal ash, enough toxic slurry to flood more than 3,000 acres of nearby land, spilled into the nearby Tennessee River and surrounding areas when a retaining wall at a power plant in the town of Harriman gave way....

William Happer, a physics professor and vocal critic of mainstream climate science, has joined the White House as a top adviser. Happer, 79, told E&E News in email that he began serving yesterday on the National Security Council as the senior director for emerging technologies. NSC officials confirmed Happer’s new role but declined to provide further detail about the appointment, which CNN first reported. When asked about his new NSC role, Happer said he would do his best to ensure that federal policy decisions “are based on sound science and technology....

Capital punishment is legal in 36 states, but that does not necessarily mean all of the condemned will be executed. Some will languish behind bars for life and others may actually be exonerated and set free. Now researchers say they have built a computer system that can predict with 92 percent accuracy which death row inmates are most likely to be executed, a development they hope will lead to a fairer appeals process....

Melanie See’s first bout of odd symptoms began in 2005. Suddenly she started sweating a lot. She rapidly lost 10 pounds. She got dizzy walking from the bedroom to the couch. She started lactating even though she was not nursing a baby. After a slew of laboratory tests, See, then 45, was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that makes thyroid hormones surge. Three years later, when See’s symptoms from Graves’ were under control with medication, her health took another rapid downturn....

As the Panthers and Broncos faced off in the third quarter of last night’s Super Bowl, wide receiver Philly Brown suffered a possible concussion—and to the disappointment of Panthers fans, he never returned to the game. But for good reason: concussions are now known to be much more serious injuries than once thought. And the danger may not be limited to the immediate repercussions. Researchers have already linked more severe traumatic brain injury to later suicide—particularly in military veterans and professional athletes—and have more recently explored the connection between concussion and depression....

An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, by Richard Dawkins. Ecco, 2013 ($27.99). The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future, by Paul Sabin. Yale University Press, 2013 ($28.50). Deadly Outbreaks: How Medical Detectives Save Lives Threatened by Killer Pandemics, Exotic Viruses and Drug-Resistant Parasites, by Alexandra M. Levitt. Skyhorse Publishing, 2013 ($24.95). The Melting World: A Journey Across America’s Vanishing Glaciers, by Christopher White....

Amir Raz, assistant professor of clinical neuroscience at Columbia University, offers the following answer. Definitely. Radiation is energy and research findings provide at least some information concerning how specific types may influence biological tissue, including that of the brain. In some cases the effect may be therapeutic. For example, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technique used to induce a short-term interruption of normal activity in a relatively restricted area of the brain by rapidly changing a strong magnetic field near the area of interest....

Although the jungles of southern Mexico seem like an ideal spot for fieldwork, the region’s sulfur springs are far from a tropical getaway. In addition to the area’s stifling heat, the pools reek of rotten eggs. Their milky, turquoise water is even more inhospitable: it is laced with toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide and contains very little oxygen. These hellish backwaters, however, serve as the stage for a remarkable display—tens of thousands of fish moving in unison like sports fans doing the wave across a stadium....

This story is a supplement to the feature “Facing the Freshwater Crisis” which was printed in the August 2008 issue of Scientific American. Pressure from Climate and Population Growth Models examining the effects of climate change and of population and economic growth on water availability by 2025 indicate that climate change alone will bring scarcity to many places (top). Population growth, however, is even more dangerous. In the absence of concerted action to save water, the combination of population growth and climate change (bottom) will create scarcity far and wide....

Michigan has taken its fight against invasive Asian carp to the U.S. Supreme Court, suing Illinois to force the closure of Chicago-area waterways that provide the fish a pathway to the Great Lakes. Experts fear that the invasive carp, which have been traveling up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers for decades, will devastate the $7 billion Great Lakes fisheries. The 100-pound fish have voracious appetites and rapid reproduction rates that could ravage native lake species....