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By David StanwayBEIJING (Reuters) - China will steer local governments away from the pursuit of economic growth at all costs and beef up their powers to punish polluters as part of a campaign to reverse the damage done by three decades of unchecked expansion.In wide-ranging economic and social reforms unveiled last week, the ruling Communist Party said it would put more emphasis on environmental protection when assessing officials, and would also hold local authorities directly responsible for pollution....

In December 2012 a homeless man named Lukis Anderson was charged with the murder of Raveesh Kumra, a Silicon Valley multimillionaire, based on DNA evidence. The charge carried a possible death sentence. But Anderson was not guilty. He had a rock-solid alibi: drunk and nearly comatose, Anderson had been hospitalized—and under constant medical supervision—the night of the murder in November. Later his legal team learned his DNA made its way to the crime scene by way of the paramedics who had arrived at Kumra’s residence....

A tax on carbon-intensive ground beef could make you think twice about eating a burger for dinner. But is it enough to make you eat a salad instead? Even economists and public health co-authors of a new economic modeling study disagree on the answer. In a new analysis, researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Reading collaborated to see how implementing a tax on foods like red meat that produce more greenhouse gases could help the environment and improve people’s health....

Mark your calendars for next Tuesday, September 10. Apple has just sent out invites for a news event that day, where we’re expecting to see the next iPhone. This year’s tagline is simply, “This should brighten everyone’s day.” The event is taking place at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., and begins at 10 a.m. Pacific. CNET will be there to bring you all the news, live. Stay tuned for more details on how to watch....

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin did something no human had done before. On board the Vostok 1 spacecraft, Gagarin became the first person in space after rocketing into the sky from a launch site in Kazakhstan for a nearly two-hour flight. What is more, Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth, a feat that the U.S. would not achieve until its third manned spaceflight, John Glenn’s three-orbit flight on Friendship 7, February 20, 1962....

This past weekend, as the actor called The Rock battled shaking, shattering rocks in the quake movie “San Andreas”, geologists added a new danger zone a few hundred miles to the west, with maps of a cracked and crooked seafloor off the California coast. While the real San Andreas fault is unlikely to trigger a giant tsunami like the one that chased Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the movie, these maps of a little-known area called the Borderlands pointed to faults that could send dangerous waves towards the fabled beaches of Los Angeles and San Diego....

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Krista and Micah Fuerst were looking near here to buy their first place together, and had narrowed it down to two houses: One built 25 years ago of standard materials, the other brand new and built to strict energy efficiency standards. The couple’s choice was easy: They picked the Energy Star home, the U.S. Environmental Program’s top energy ranking. But they’re in the minority. About 17 percent of new homes built in 2008 earned the Energy Star label....

Eighty percent of cushions used in car seats, portable cribs and other baby furnishings contain chemical flame retardants that can accumulate in babies’ bodies, according to a new study to be published Wednesday. More than one-third of the tested products contained the same carcinogenic chemical that was removed from children’s pajamas in the late 1970s. The study, conducted by research chemists from California and North Carolina, suggests that babies are being exposed to at least eight different flame-retarding chemicals in an array of products sold nationwide....

DURBAN, South Africa—The roughly 3,000 fossil fuel–fired power plants in North America—Canada, Mexico and the U.S.—emit 6 percent of global greenhouse gases, or nearly as much as all of the European Union. In fact, coal-fired power plants around the globe are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, coal is largely responsible for climate change. Burning coal alone contributes more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions from human activity....

A Trump administration proposal to vastly expand federal conservation land along the East Coast is facing protests from states and communities that say the plan will damage tourism industries that are still recovering from Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The dispute is unfolding from Maryland to Massachusetts as officials and homeowners object to a plan by the Fish and Wildlife Service to add 275,000 acres to a federal protection zone. It’s one of the largest expansions of the Coastal Barrier Resources System in its 37-year history....

Voice mail hacking was practiced for years at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid in the U.K. prior to its dramatic public implosion a few weeks ago. Murdoch’s media empire was shaken this time because his employees were found to be spying on victims of tragedy, including a murdered teen and families of dead soldiers, rather than on celebrities and royals. This revelation prompted retaliatory online hacks against several of Murdoch’s media properties by a group known as Lulz Security (LulzSec)....

Sunrise on the Serengeti, and life on the savanna is in full swing. Zebras and wildebeests graze the dewy grass; elephants and giraffes munch on acacia leaves; and lions and hyenas survey the scene, looking for their next meal. To visit this place is, in some ways, to see the world as it looked to our ancestors millions of years ago, long before humans began to wreak havoc on the planet—or so the conventional wisdom goes....

Triacetone triperoxide (TATP) is a highly unstable explosive prone to unintended detonation. Yet terrorists, such as those responsible for last week’s bombings in Brussels and the November 2015 attacks in Paris, are increasingly using the compound to inflict carnage. Despite its instability, TATP is attractive as a terror weapon because it is relatively easy to prepare and, until recently, was difficult to detect by standard explosives screening methods. Those methods, which are based on X-ray computed tomography (CT) and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), have been modified and can now routinely detect TATP in airports and at other security checkpoints....

Research collaborations for cleaner, more energy-dense biofuels and recyclable plastics are at the heart of a new agreement between Exxon Mobil Corp. and Department of Energy laboratories. Bill Farris, associate director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo., explained that the agreement will give scientists better insights into future energy markets and ways to scale up cleaner forms of energy. “Exxon has to think about how you scale things up,” Farris said in an interview about Exxon’s commitment to contribute $100 million to research by NREL and 16 other DOE laboratories over the next 10 years....

Ever since I served as the launch editor of Scientific American Mind, a little more than a decade ago, our editors have had something of an obsession with relationships. The cover story of the premiere issue, for instance, offered to explain “why we help”—it explored altruism and other socially focused behavior. Through the years the magazine has examined whether men and women can be “just friends,” how certain parenting styles can foster happy and successful children, and why we feel social support from online communities even though there is no in-person contact....

A mix of perennial grasses and herbs might offer the best chance for the U.S. to produce a sustainable biofuel, according to the results of a new study. But making that dream a reality could harm local environments and would require developing new technology to harvest, process and convert such plant material into biofuels such as ethanol. Biofuels have become controversial for their impact on food production. The ethanol used in the U....

Employers who provide for mental health care may cultivate a better balance sheet as well as a happier lunch room. Rising health insurance costs and harsh social stigmas cause many employers to overlook workers’ mental health needs, but ignoring the problem may cost more than addressing it. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine recently reviewed 103 studies covering mental health and factors such as health care dollars spent; worker productivity, retention and absenteeism; and workplace morale....

On Animals Susan Orlean Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2021 ($28) In On Animals, a new collection of old essays, veteran journalist Susan Orlean is almost the obverse of wonder-seeking naturalists like David Attenborough. Her focus is not on wild creatures and their swiftly disappearing worlds but on animals that live in human-dominated spheres: pets, working animals, and those kept as barnyard companions, livestock, or curiosities. Her subjects are the familiar denizens of the home, farm, zoo and marketplace....

Baffling grammar, strange vowels, quirky idioms and so many new words—all of this makes learning a new language hard work. Luckily, researchers have discovered a number of helpful tricks, ranging from exposing your ears to a variety of native speakers to going to sleep soon after a practice session. A pair of recent papers suggests that even when you are not actively studying, what you hear can affect your learning and that sometimes listening without speaking works best....

“My name is Joel Barish and I am here to erase Clementine Kruczynski,” declares Joel to Dr. Mierzwiak, the head of a local memory erasure clinic, Lacuna Inc. Joel has just been through a bad break-up with Clementine, and he was stunned to find out that she had him removed from her memory. Spiteful, Joel rushes to Lacuna to have her removed off his memory. As the procedure takes hold, Joel gets cold feet but it is too late: The memories of Clementine slowly fade away....