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Apple continues to refine certain elements in iOS 7 as seen in the fourth beta released on Monday. The phone buttons that appear in response to an incoming call are now less text-heavy, as noted by AppleInsider. The buttons for “remind me later” and “respond with text” have been renamed to simply “remind me” and “message” with icons to represent their roles. All the call buttons, including those for decline and answer, also have received a small aesthetic change....

Finland’s temperatures have risen at roughly double the rate of the planet as a whole, a new study suggests. A team of researchers from the University of Eastern Finland and the Finnish Meteorological Society found that over the past 166 years, the country’s average monthly temperatures have increased by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a 0.14 C change per decade. For the planet as a whole, the average temperature had increased by 0....

It is a gloomy spring day in Paris 1969, and people are hurrying in and out of Hector Guimard’s pliable, melting Métropolitain station. Suddenly, they stop and stare: what is that? There is something out of the ordinary, something quite weird ascending the stairs. In a deliberately slow, theatrical fashion and well aware of the commotion he is causing, Salvador Dali emerges onto the Paris street, with head held high and not before stopping to pose for a picture....

In the mid-2000s, when scientists questioned whether the campaign to rid the world of polio could succeed, skeptics pointed to a problem that some called PAIN. That stood for Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria—the four countries that were stubbornly standing in the way of success. The four had never managed to stop the spread of polioviruses within their borders and continued to send viruses, like embers off a fire, to re-ignite outbreaks in places that had previously halted transmission....

RESEARCH LEADER OF THE YEAR Angela Belcher Massachusetts Institute of Technology This eclectic investigator draws inspiration from nature’s genius for building things at the nanoscale The crux of nanotechnology is the problem of self-assembly, getting uncooperative atoms to link and align themselves up in precise ways. We know it can be done, of course: life persists by turning molecules into complex biological machinery. How fitting, then, that one of today’s most creative materials scientists, Angela Belcher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has turned to nature for assistance....

For the first time, scientists have injected carbon dioxide into ancient lava flows and watched it solidify, demonstrating that capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or a power plant smokestack and safely storing it underground may be a realistic way to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change, according to research published Friday. Scientists working at the Wallula Basalt Pilot Project in Washington State turned liquefied carbon dioxide into solid rock by injecting the gas into basalt formations....

The computer, smartphone or other electronic device on which you may be reading this article, tracking the weather or checking your e-mail has a kind of rudimentary brain. It has highly organized electrical circuits that store information and behave in specific, predictable ways, just like the interconnected cells in your brain. On the most fundamental level, electrical circuits and neurons are made of the same stuff—atoms and their constituent elementary particles—but whereas the human brain is conscious of itself, man-made gadgets do not know they exist....

Geology stories can shake the world–it is in their nature–and 2014 was true to form. There were notable jolts and rumbles, and some surprising shakeups above the ground as well. Here are six areas where Earth made big news, as reported in Scientific American during the past 12 months. You may have your own earthy stories that you think should be on this list. If you do, please list them in the comments section below....

You may have heard the proclamation before: The next generation of biofuels will be derived from cellulosic plant material. And, in theory, this makes sense. Whereas ethanol can be produced via the fermentation of simple sugars in food crops such as corn or sugarcane, it would be more economical to make fuel from nonfood sources that are cheaper and more abundant—such as switchgrass, Miscanthus or wood chips. The problem? Today’s methods for breaking down cellulose, the fibrous complex sugar that is the main structural component in green plants, are too expensive....

CLIMATEWIRE | India has experienced a series of unusually early and prolonged heat waves this year. To cool off, the country has leaned on the fuel most responsible for the blazing temperatures. Coal generation is surging to meet the demands of cooling systems like fans and some air conditioning, prompting a scramble by the Indian government to reopen mines and secure tons of coal imports to produce electricity as temperatures reach as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit....

IN THE DECADE since researchers first sequenced the human genome, obvious links between the genes and individual diseases have been slow to appear [see “Revolution Postponed,” by Stephen S. Hall; Scientific American, October]. Many researchers now believe that real advances in genomics will come not from simple X-causes-Y correlations but from a rich statistical understanding that emerges out of the sequences of millions of genomes—a set that reveals how our genetic code is likely to interact with the environment to make us who we are....

People who are so-called simultagnosics have a problem with a crease in their brains that links the top and bottom of the parietal lobe. Because of damage to this crease, called the intraparietal sulcus, simultagnosics cannot actively perceive the different properties of an object. “If you don’t have an actively functioning intraparietal sulcus and you are looking at a red car moving down the street, you can’t actively perceive the color and the movement,” explains neurobiologist Melina Uncapher of the University of California, Irvine....

Want to start a brawl at an evolution conference? Just bring up the concept of group selection: the idea that one mixed bag of individuals can be “selected” as a group over other heterogeneous groups from the same species. Biologists who would not hesitate to form a group themselves to combat creationism or intelligent design might suddenly start a pie fight to defend the principle that “it’s every man for himself....

Last December Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced the birth of their daughter—and made a pledge to donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares over the course of their lives to charitable causes. The decision was met with both praise for its altruism and criticism, as people called into question Zuckerberg’s true motives and whether this was a move to save millions of dollars in taxes. Of course, the world may never know whether or not the intent of the new parents was truly philanthropic....

Ever since college I have been a libertarian—socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility. I also believe in science as the greatest instrument ever devised for understanding the world. So what happens when these two principles are in conflict? My libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump the scientific facts....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Hypaspist translitterates the Greek term meaning shield-bearer, or armour-bearer (ὁ ὑπασπιστής). This noun is formed from the verb ὑπασπίζειν - to carry the shield for another; serve as a shieldbearer. The Shieldbearers of the Argead kings Philip II and Alexander III were the élite Makedonian infantry corps with important roles in the army and at the royal court, where they seem to have constituted the the court guard (as distinct from the somatophylakia, the corps of aristocratic youths who were the bodyguard of the king himself)....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Nero’s Golden House (the Domus Aurea) in Rome was a sumptuous palace complex which played host to the wild parties of one of Rome’s most notorious emperors. Besides using the finest marble and decoration such as fine wall-painting and gilded colonnades, the building was also a technical marvel with soaring domes, revolving ceilings, ornamental fountains and even waterfalls running down the walls....

In cancer research, blood cancers have always stood apart. The group, which includes leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, corrupt various cells within the blood, lymph nodes and bone marrow. For patients, hematological malignancies, like their solid tumor counterparts, are diverse. Some are easy to treat; some are nearly impossible. Some move quickly; some exist for decades, unnoticed. For researchers, blood cancers can be a broad target. Because such malignancies circulate throughout a patient’s system, they can be relatively easy to access and study....

For centuries people have painted cities as unnatural human conglomerations, blighted by pathologies such as public health crises, aggression and exorbitant costs of living. Why, then, do people throughout the world keep leaving the countryside for the town? Research that has been forming a multidisciplinary science of cities is beginning to reveal the answer: cities concentrate, accelerate, and diversify social and economic activity. The numbers show that urban dwellers produce more inventions and create more opportunities for economic growth....

Lawmakers are remaking NASA in order to leave parts of the agency’s earth science program untouched but remove its climate change research. It’s still unclear exactly how lawmakers plan to transform NASA’s mission, but Republicans and Trump administration officials have said they want the agency to focus on deep-space missions and away from climate change research, which is a part of its Earth Sciences Division. That has created uncertainty about the fate of the Earth Sciences Division, which accounts for about $2 billion of NASA’s $20 billion budget....