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FBI aircraft are performing flyover imaging runs of an area on Long Island where local authorities have already discovered 10 sets of human remains. The bones and bodies appear to be the work of a serial killer—and perhaps multiple killers—who dumped the bodies in brush near the island’s south shore. The federal agency provided a fixed-wing aircraft for surveillance of the coastal brushlands on April 14, and on April 18 an FBI helicopter joined the search as well....

On the second day of the IAC, during a special keynote entitled “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species,” Musk will discuss the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. The technical presentation will focus on potential architectures for colonizing the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead. [SpaceX’s Red Dragon: A Private Mars in Pictures]...

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. There’s a handy trick for reading station signs that otherwise fly past in a blur as you travel in a high-speed train. Look at one side of the window and then immediately at the other side of the window. When you change your gaze, your eyes will automatically make a rapid jerking movement, known as a saccade....

No treatment on the market has been proved to slow human aging–the buildup of molecular and cellular damage that increases vulnerability to infirmity as we grow older. But one intervention, consumption of a low-calorie yet nutritionally balanced diet, works incredibly well in a broad range of animals, increasing longevity and prolonging good health. Those findings suggest that calorie restriction could delay aging in humans, too. Unfortunately, for maximum benefit, people would probably have to reduce their calorie intake by roughly 30 percent, equivalent to dropping from 2,500 calories a day to 1,750....

David Grier, chair of the physics department at New York University, dials up an answer to this mystery. This sounds like a case of electromagnetic interference (or EMI), which is what happens when radio waves emitted by one device cause undesirable behavior in another. Virtually every piece of electrically powered equipment acts as a radio transmitter, whether it is supposed to or not. That’s because the rapidly changing electric currents running through these devices naturally radiate electromagnetic waves....

Questions answered in this episode: “If we were to add a lot of mass to the moon, for its gravity to get stronger, what would that mean to the rotation of the earth?” - Barrows0re “If smaller objects are being pulled by larger objects, then why does the moon get further and further away from earth?” - Draftgon “Why are celestial bodies always spherical in shape? i.e stars, planets, moons.” - AzA...

Will nations ever come together to keep climate out of the severe danger zone? The question looms like a cloud now that President Donald Trump is withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate change accord—an international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But the nation’s ambivalence about climate change long predates the last presidential elect—on. A major reason is some American conservatives’ hostility to government intervention. If the U.S. and the world are to succeed in limiting dis ruptive climate change, the U....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Tower of the Winds, also known as the Clock of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, is a timekeeping tower on the eastern side of the Roman agora of Athens. Built in the 2nd century BCE, it once had nine sundials and contained a large water clock. Recently cleaned and restored, visitors can now finally enter the tower as part of the visit to the agora....

A total lunar eclipse is one of the night sky’s most photogenic sights, as Scientific American readers have proved. We asked readers to send in photos of last night’s eclipse, which happened to coincide with Mars’s closest approach to Earth, making for an extra-picturesque scene. Although cloud cover prevented a view of the moon in some areas, photographers responded from Tasmania, Canada and other locales, which offered impressive views of the scarlet moon and the crimson planet....

As the world gears up for the next round of United Nations climate-change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in November, evidence has emerged that a cornerstone of the existing global climate agreement, the international greenhouse-gas emissions-trading system, is seriously flawed. Critics have long questioned the usefulness of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was established under the Kyoto Protocol. It allows rich countries to offset some of their carbon emissions by investing in climate-friendly projects, such as hydroelectric power and wind farms, in developing countries....

By Kathryn Doyle (Reuters Health) - Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy was associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI) in a data mining study by U.S. researchers. There have been questions about the safety of PPIs for people who have had a coronary event like MI, said lead author Nigam H. Shah of Stanford University in California, but most research has focused on the interaction between these drugs and the blood thinner clopidogrel....

As COVID-19 forced many workers across the U.S. to move from downtown office towers to spare rooms and kitchen tables, their commutes shrank from an average of almost 30 minutes (often in bumper-to-bumper traffic) to a few steps down the hall. A May survey of 2,500 Americans found that 42 percent were teleworking full-time—one of many dramatic changes wrought by the novel coronavirus. Though experts studying the pandemic’s economic and environmental consequences are clear that there is no silver lining to a disease that has killed more than half a million people and upended the lives of millions of others around the world, some believe the resulting lockdowns may offer lessons to apply to another, slower-moving crisis....

Nearly 21 million Americans suffer from type 2 diabetes, and every year 800,000 more are diagnosed. Considering the growing numbers, scientists are trying to fit together the disease’s disparate puzzle pieces. People who acquire it are typically obese, suffer from chronic inflammation and are resistant to insulin, the hormone that removes sugar from the blood and stores it as energy. For years no one has known exactly how the three characteristics are related, if at all....

On a sunny day in December, I visit a shiny, sterile water-processing facility nestled in the hills of northern San Diego. Sheltered by an ugly cream-colored roof but lacking walls, the workings of this oversize chemist’s laboratory glisten in the warm winter sun. Visible from every angle are row on row of silver tubes and canisters of various shapes and sizes and great gray metal vats of concealed liquid. As my tour of the small plant comes to a close, I am presented with a challenge: to identify, by sight, the contents of three large glass bottles, spaced evenly on a table before me and filled with clear fluids....

“I believe this is bad in the long term for both the pharmaceutical companies and the public,” says John Vederas of the University of Alberta. “The current balance between high-throughput screening of synthetic libraries and pursuit of natural-product leads is skewed in an unfavorable way.” In this week’s Science, Vederas and his student Jesse Li explain that this shift from natural products, along with tighter safety requirements and a focus on blockbuster drugs, is a key reason why the pharmaceutical pipeline is drying up....

Wearing masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) can slow the spread of COVID-19. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends everyone wear some kind of face covering in public places, especially where social distancing is difficult to maintain. And health workers are donning additional coverings, such as gowns. Yet all such protective gear shares one significant problem: people still risk becoming infected with the novel coronavirus if they accidentally touch areas of the fabric that are contaminated with viral particles....

Dear EarthTalk: I want to offer my employees a 401(k) plan that is socially and environmentally responsible. Are there such plans and, if so, where do I look? – CJ Hughes, Queens, NY Even though socially responsible investing (SRI) has been around for decades, only recently have some companies begun to offer their employees greener options for 401(k) retirement investment accounts. According to Rona Fried of SustainableBusiness.com, SRI options for retirement plans are still only offered to about 20 percent of employees, but that’s changing fast....

To be socially savvy, you have to learn the hierarchy. This skill is so crucial that even babies possess it, according to a study published January 28 in Science. Infants only 10 months old know that bigger beings usually get their way. Developmental psychologist Lotte Thomsen of the University of Copenhagen and her collaborators showed infants cartoon movies in which two different-size blocks, each having an eye and a mouth, bounced toward each other starting from opposite sides of a platform....

Rats, moths and butterflies are all known to send chemosignals to secure mates. Similar phenomena have been suggested but not proved in humans: Studies such as Elizabeth McClintock’s work in the early 1970s—in which women living together in a dormitory were found to have synchronous menstrual cycles—indicate that a sort of sixth sense exists that allows people’s bodies to communicate with one another. But no evidence was produced, says Claire Wyart, a postdoctoral neuroscience researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, “that a single component of a complex mixture like sweat could induce a change on a hormonal level” without direct contact....

Agriculture giant Monsanto has licensed CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology from the Broad Institute for use in seed development, the company announced on Thursday, a step that will likely accelerate and simplify the creation of crops that are resistant to drought or have consumer-pleasing properties such as soybean oil with fats as healthy as those in olive oil. But the deal comes with restrictions that speak to the startling power of CRISPR, as well as widespread public anxiety about genetically modified crops: Monsanto cannot use it for gene drive, the controversial technique that can spread a trait through an entire population, with unknown consequences....