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Who wouldn’t want a car that gets better gas mileage? Most Americans—in the past. For years surveys showed that U.S. consumers were more focused on a car’s power, safety, roominess or special features, but the public has made an about-face, according to data released yesterday by the Consumer Federation of America. The CFA surveyed 1,001 Americans to learn if their attitudes were in line with federal standards that require automakers to significantly raise the average fuel economy of new cars by 2025....

Freddie Lee Hall loved to gamble, although he usually lost. Winning was better: then he gladly gave the money back to the friends he’d won it from, along with all the wages he earned picking fruit in rural Florida. His friends praised him for this. It made him feel good. And Hall needed to feel good — as court documents make abundantly clear. As a child growing up in the impoverished town of Webster, Florida, he had struggled to keep up with 16 brothers and sisters, who were much smarter than he was....

The insight that neurological functions could be localized in the brain—that activities such as speech, vision and hearing take place in fixed locations, with the aid of specialized neural circuits—has served as one of the driving ideas in neuroscience. Less often appreciated is the companion notion that the power of the brain, the key to its flexibility and coordination, lies not just in the capacities of these dedicated processing centers, but also in the connections among them....

As NASA focuses considerable effort on a mission to send humans to Mars in the coming decades, psychology researchers are looking at what types of personalities would work the best together on such a long trip. Now, a new study finds that on long-term space missions — such as missions to Mars, which could take as long as three years to complete a round trip — having an extrovert on board could have several disadvantages....

Every earthquake starts small. Beginning at one point, it extends outward, causing tremors in and around its path. At some point, though, all earthquakes stop. So what brings this mighty process to a halt? That’s an important question, because the duration of an earthquake helps determine how much damage it will do. Will the tremor be of mild magnitude—say, a magnitude 4 on the Richter scale, the kind that occur all over the world every day—or a 9, which happens no more than once a decade on average?...

Scientific American presents Nutrition Diva by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. This is the second in a two-part series on nutrition and fertility. Last week, I talked about dietary factors that affect women’s reproductive health. But, obviously, it takes two people to make a baby - and nutrition has a significant impact on men’s reproductive function as well. This week’s episode focuses on the things men can do to enhance their fertility....

Microsoft’s Surface RT debacle has more to do with a collapsing PC market and Windows RT than hardware. Imagine this. Apple comes out with the iPad about three years late and slaps on a stripped-down version of Windows 8. Now imagine the consumer response. Yeah, I wouldn’t buy it either. “Several other vendors that released [Windows] RT products had lackluster sales and difficulty clearing inventory,” Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS iSuppli, told CNET....

MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING TREES Global warming is leaving trees behind. Some two thirds of forest species in six French mountain ranges have moved at least 18.5 meters higher on the mountainsides per decade during the 20th century. Previous research has demonstrated that plants at the highest elevations on mountains and in the polar regions have shifted to adjust to global warming. The latest result marks the first confirmation that entire ecosystems in lower, more temperate regions are moving as well....

On June 8 former South African president and cultural icon Nelson Mandela, 94, was hospitalized for a recurring lung infection. As his health remains “critical but stable,” questions arise about the cause of Mandela’s infections, which began when he contracted tuberculosis during his time as a political prisoner. One factor may be extremely relevant: Mandela’s advanced age. To help explain pulmonary infections and their frequency in the elderly, Scientific American sat down with Steven E....

NOVEMBER 11–12 Researchers agree that genetic factors are a predominant cause of autism. Yet each new gene accounts for only about 1 to 2 percent of all cases. Now mounting evidence suggests that many of these defective genes fall along a brain pathway where key neural connections develop. At a two-day meeting sponsored by the journal Brain Research, The Emerging Neuroscience of Autism Spectrum Disorders, scientists will discuss how these insights can help trace the disorder’s genesis and spur novel treatment strategies....

A telescope project that has become notorious for its ballooning cost and repeated delays has lately been operating on schedule and within budget, NASA officials told Congress last week. One of the most ambitious and powerful observatories ever built, the $8.8-billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is on track to launch in 2018, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor hired to build the telescope, has lately been troubleshooting a problem with the “cryocooler” meant to stop heat from interfering with the telescope’s sensitive infrared camera, which requires frigid temperatures to see such long wavelengths....

Chronic pain affects at least one in three adults in the U.S., which is more than the sum total of those with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. For many of these 116 million Americans, their pain is severe and eludes available treatments. In addition to the human suffering, the monetary cost of medical treatment and lost productivity has reached $635 billion a year. The U.S. needs “a cultural transformation” in the way we view pain, treat it and conduct research on its causes and treatments, says a new report released June 29 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM)....

By Erik De CastroLOBOC, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippines started to clear roads blocked by debris on Thursday as it reckoned up the cost of this week’s powerful earthquake, with the death toll rising to at least 158.Tens of thousands of residents of Bohol island, which took the brunt of Tuesday’s 7.2 magnitude quake, remained living outdoors, for fear of aftershocks bringing down damaged homes.Authorities have recorded more than 1,200 aftershocks including one of magnitude 5....

In Mars exploration, of course, it’s the Red Planet itself that gets top billing. But there are some good reasons to keep tabs on Phobos, the innermost and larger of Mars’ two diminutive moons, which the Russian space agency plans to study with a probe set for launch next month on board a Zenit rocket. Called Phobos Grunt, the three-year mission is to land a spacecraft on the distant moon, scoop up soil samples for analysis and launch one of them back to Earth for further inspection....

Uncertainty is hanging over the future of a key particle physics experiment. The facility, a detector built for studying neutrinos, is housed deep below the New Mexico desert alongside the United States’ only deep geological repository for nuclear waste. But researchers have not had access to the underground site since February, when an accident at the repository released radioactivity, and so they have been forced to mothball the experiment. The Enriched Xenon Observatory-200 (EXO-200) was installed in 2007 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, a repository 655 metres underground dug out of a salt bed....

DARK MATTER AND STARS “The First Starlight,” by Michael D. Lemonick, discusses the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the universe. Slight mention was made in the article of the role dark matter may have played in the process. Because dark matter will also have been drawn into the gravitational collapse that formed the first stars, these stars may have been bloated with this nonfusible dark matter, delaying star formation until the masses became enormous....

October 2 Neuroscience luminary Eric Kandel explains the current scientific understanding of depression and bipolar disorder in a public lecture sponsored by the Mood Disorders Support Group of New York City. Kandel received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 [see box]. A recording of the lecture will also be available for purchase online. New York City www.mdsg.org/lectures.html 7–10 Hundreds of clinical and research teams investigate nervous system diseases every year, but only eight studies merit inclusion among the special presentations at the American Neurological Association’s 132nd Annual Meeting....

By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE (Reuters) - A Seattle suburb was making progress cleansing its E. coli-contaminated water supply through system-wide flushes and chlorine injections, a task made more urgent after the potentially deadly bacteria sickened a child, officials said on Tuesday. Tests first showed the bacteria in the water supply on Mercer Island on Sept. 26, forcing area schools to close for a day as health officials collected thousands of samples to try to locate the source of the contamination....

Key concepts The five senses The nervous system Neuroscience Introduction Are you ticklish? If so, you’ve probably noticed that some parts of your body are more ticklish than others. That’s because your skin’s touch receptors aren’t evenly distributed—some areas have more and others have a lot less. In this activity, you’ll learn more about your sense of touch by testing your body’s own reactions. Background This activity is based on a physical exam used in medical checkups....

Treatment: NicVAX Maker: Nabi Biopharmaceuticals Stage: Phase IIb began in May 2006, results expected April or May 2007. Why It Matters Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. According to the CDC, an estimated 70 percent of smokers want to quit, but each year only 2.5 percent succeed in quitting permanently. How It Works NicVAX is designed to vaccinate the body against nicotine. Funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), it combines nicotine with a bacterial protein that causes an immune response....