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One of the more poetic aspects of the universe is that frighteningly powerful and raging forces can sculpt objects of graceful symmetry and beauty. And, as an added bonus, such forces may also lend a hand in our own existence. WR 140 is a binary star system, meaning two stars orbiting one another, some 5,400 light-years from Earth. Both stars are absolute beasts, blasting out fierce amounts of light, but across that astronomical distance their brilliance is diminished to naked-eye invisibility....

Dying, never easy to confront, has become still more difficult in the era of high-tech medicine. The end of life often comes after repeated surgeries, a retinue of drugs with painful side effects, endless consultations with specialists and being harnessed to life-supporting hospital equipment. We have become so adept at prolonging life that death often arrives after months or years of coping with not just one but several severe ailments. Many patients would choose not to extend their life this way, but modern medicine does not help them with this crucial decision....

From Nature magazine Europe’s drugs regulator has for the first time recommended a gene therapy medicine for approval. Glybera, a treatment for patients who cannot produce enough of an enzyme crucial for breaking down fat, was backed by the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). This recommendation has to be endorsed by the European Commission before it becomes available, but it would be unusual for the Commission to reject the recommendation....

By Kerri SmithTwo tiny changes in the sequence of one gene could have helped install the mechanisms of speech and language in humans.In 2001, a gene called FOXP2 was found to underlie a rare inherited speech and language disorder. It encodes a transcription factor called FOXP2, a protein ‘dimmer-switch’ that binds to DNA and helps to determine to what extent other genes are expressed as proteins.Experiments have now revealed that the human version of FOXP2, which has two different amino acids compared with the version carried by chimps, has differing effects on genes in the brains of the two species....

Researchers have found Colombia’s first cases of birth defects linked to the Zika virus, Nature has learned—which are likely forerunners of a widely anticipated wave of Zika-related birth defects in the country. The discovery is perhaps no surprise: the virus arrived in Colombia last September, and the country is second only to Brazil in terms of the number of people infected with Zika. But Colombian researchers hope that plans put in place to closely monitor pregnant women can help to better establish the magnitude of the threat posed to fetuses by Zika....

Everyone judges the plausibility of a movie through a different lens. If you’re a doctor, you may think: “That character would not have survived that fall.” If you’re an astrophysicist: “That’s not how black holes work.” And if you’re me, it’s more like: “What a dumb concept of future personal technology!” It makes me crazy when sci-fi moviemakers dream up stuff with no basis in science. Human teleporters? Sorry, Star Trek....

After a nearly seven-year journey and a descent through the hazy atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon, the Huygens spacecraft has sent back streams of data and the first ever close-up pictures of Titan. The images indicate that the moon’s chilly surface texture resembles wet sand or clay with a thin crust and is composed of both frozen water and hydrocarbons. The Huygens probe, released from the Cassini spacecraft on December 24, entered Titan’s atmosphere on January 14 and landed safely on the ground two hours and 32 minutes later....

By Gopal Sharma PATNAIndia/KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Authorities in eastern India began evacuating thousands of villagers on Saturday after efforts to clear a deadly landslide in neighboring Nepal sparked fears of flash floods downstream, government officials said. The landslide, triggered by heavy rains in Nepal’s Sindhupalchowk district, killed at least nine people and buried dozens of homes. More than 100 people are believed missing. The slide has also created a mud dam blocking the Sunkoshi river, which runs into India’s Bihar state as the Kosi river....

A video documenting the final moments of life for George Floyd has sparked massive protests in every part of the country and international outrage. The video, which has been watched by millions, offers a stark testimony to a long-endured tragedy. Because of what it captures, it will likely mark a turning point in history. Yet, the video, and others like it, are also condemned for what they show.
Some have denounced the video—some calling it pain porn—arguing that images of people being killed should never be made public....

In the final hand of the 2011 World Series of Poker, Pius Heinz, a 22-year-old German who had honed his poker chops online was matched up against 35-year-old Martin Staszko – a former Hyundai automobile plant foreman. Staszko was in bad shape, having only about a quarter of the chips his younger opponent had, and had been dealt a relatively mediocre hand. Despite this, he decided to risk it all in an attempt to wage a comeback....

By Melissa Gaskill of Nature magazineThere is only one official source of data on pollution caused by offshore drilling in U.S. waters: the National Response Center, an online reporting system for oil and chemical spills managed by the U.S. Coast Guard. But watchdog groups say that the system’s reliance on self-reporting means its data are fundamentally flawed.One of those groups is SkyTruth of Shepherdstown, W. Va., founded by geologist John Amos in 2001 to monitor the effects of human activity on the environment using remote-sensing and mapping technologies....

By Karen Brooks(Reuters) - West Virginia officials said Thursday they have lifted a ban on drinking tap water for two-thirds of the customers affected by a chemical spill, but warned pregnant women to avoid it until the chemical is completely flushed from the pipes.One week after the spill into the Elk River prompted authorities to order some 300,000 people not to drink or wash with their tap water, officials have cleared more than 200,000 of them to start drinking the water again after tests showed levels below the 1 part per million level safety standard set by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention....

Much of the focus at the Deepwater Horizon disaster site has been on the oil pouring out of the damaged well, but some researchers are beginning to turn their attention to the methane, or natural, gas escaping along with the gushing crude. Careful study of this methane, which comprises about 40 percent of the riser pipe output, is expected to provide scientists with a wealth of information, including a more accurate calculation of the spill’s magnitude and thereby a better understanding of its impact on ocean life....

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a day after news broke that Trump-administration National Security Council (NSC) officials had floated a plan for the federal government to build its own public 5G high-speed wireless network, the idea had been roundly shot down by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, members of Congress, wireless industry pundits—and even the White House itself. News Web site Axios on Sunday published an article, based on an undated NSC documents titled, “Secure 5G: The Eisenhower National Highway System for the Information Age....

NEW YORK — On a frigid December afternoon, Dr. Harold Bornstein was talking about his most famous patient, President-elect Donald Trump. He hadn’t spoken with Trump since the election, and had no idea whether he would be asked to move his medical practice to Washington. But he also didn’t seem particularly worried about what the stress of the job might mean for the nation’s oldest president — a distinction he hadn’t considered until this reporter pointed it out....

Is preserving the general environmental conditions that allowed civilization to flourish—a moderate climate, a rich array of species, rivers that reach the sea—necessary to ensure humanity endures? Or is minimizing alterations to the global environment introduced by human activity—rising levels of CO2 from fossil-fuel burning, widespread extinction, dams that impound water—more important to our success? Choosing the right approach is vital as the scale of human impact on the planet becomes so large that scientists are calling this new epoch in Earth’s history the Anthropocene (when human activity alters global climate and ecosystems)....

Rick Watling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, offers this explanation. Atmospheric gases such as nitrogen and oxygen can dissolve in water. The amount of gas dissolved depends on the temperature of the water and the atmospheric pressure at the air/water interface. Colder water and higher pressure allow more gas to dissolve; conversely, warmer water and lower pressure allow less gas to dissolve. When you draw a glass of cold water from your faucet and allow it to warm to room temperature, nitrogen and oxygen slowly come out of solution, with tiny bubbles forming and coalescing at sites of microscopic imperfections on the glass....

Rafael Caruso, an investigator in the National Eye Institute’s Ophthalmic Genetics & Visual Function Branch in Bethesda, Md., guides us to an answer. If we go from the outdoors on a bright sunny day into a very dimly lit room, we are hardly able to see our surroundings at first. As time goes by, however, we gradually become able to detect the room’s contents. This phenomenon is known as “dark adaptation,” and it typically takes between 20 and 30 minutes to reach its maximum, depending on the intensity of light exposure in the previous surroundings....

Did you like this interview? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. In this interview, World History Encyclopedia sits down with author James Lacey to chat about his new book Rome: Strategy of Empire published by Oxford University Press. Kelly: Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Advertisement James: Sometimes when people ask me for my background, it sounds like I can’t keep a job, but I’ll go through it from beginning to end....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Letters and their delivery via a state communication system was a feature of many ancient cultures. The writing medium may have differed but the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Incas all had the means to send messengers and communications over great distances and do so relatively quickly. Staging posts were established where couriers could eat, rest, change transport or pass on their messages in relays....