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A year ago when I arrived here by helicopter with researchers Colin Donihue and Anthony Herrel, this small Caribbean island was a moonscape. A mile long, Redonda is a rock nub protruding up from the sea; its steep, windy cliffs dropping into the sapphire water below. Accounts from various explorers indicate that over the last century its surface had been gradually eaten bare of vegetation by invasive goats. Guano miners in the 1800s may have brought the animals as a source of fresh meat, although there’s mention of goats as early as 1745....

The human race can breathe a tiny bit easier (but not too much) now that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hand of its Doomsday Clock one minute farther away from midnight, the time which symbolizes catastrophic destruction and the apocalyptic end of civilization. The clock now reads six minutes from that end-of-days witching hour after it was changed during a press conference Thursday in New York City, citing an increased awareness and interest in stopping key threats to humanity (in particular nuclear conflict and global warming) since U....

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali said on Monday that another person had tested positive for the Ebola virus, bringing the total number of cases in the West African nation to eight. Mali is the sixth West African country to be hit by the worst outbreak on record of deadly haemorrhagic fever that has killed some 5,459 since the first case was recorded early this year in neighboring Guinea. The Malian government did not provide further details about the new case and how the person contracted the disease, but it came after another case was confirmed on Saturday....

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which studied two large objects in the asteroid belt, has officially run out of fuel, ending its mission to shed light on the solar system’s earliest days, but the spacecraft’s science legacy will live on. Dawn was the first spacecraft to orbit two different extraterrestrial objects. The mission was technically canceled twice before the spacecraft got off the ground, but Dawn launched in September 2007 with its sights set on the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres, chosen for how little they resembled each other....

An intriguing hint of a certain type of gamma-ray light at the center of the Milky Way might be a product of elusive dark matter — or it might not be. For the past several years, scientists have debated whether the light is really there, and what it means. Now, researchers are petitioning the management team of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, the observatory that saw the light, to change its observing strategy to determine once and for all whether the signal really exists....

Squid, octopus and cuttlefish populations are booming across the world. These fast-growing, adaptable creatures are perfectly equipped to exploit the gaps left by extreme climate changes and overfishing, according to a study colleagues and I published in the journal Current Biology. Humans have reached and in many cases surpassed sustainable fishing limits, as our growing population demands more food. In terms of the food web, we tend to start from the top and fish “downwards”....

By Kate LarkinIt is over two weeks since the floods began in Pakistan, and the rains are still falling. Already termed the worst flooding to hit Pakistan for 80 years, this deluge has affected millions of people, and so far over 1,600 have died.With the impacts of the flooding likely to continue well after the flood waters have retreated, Nature examines the escalating humanitarian disaster. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group....

Physicists working at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, have finally made the perfect foam. Whereas most Dubliners might consider that to be the head on a pint of Guinness, Denis Weaire and his co-workers have a more sophisticated answer. ‘Perfect’ here means the lowest-energy configuration of packed bubbles of equal size. This is a compromise between the surface area of the bubbles and the stability of the many interlocking faces of the polyhedral bubbles in the foam....

Chain-gang chants, military cadences, sea shanties: humans have long paired music making with intense physical exercise. Now research confirms the power of the combination: working out seems easier while producing music, according to a small study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. In the study, half of the participants made music while working out by using software that turned their movements into tunes. These exercisers exerted equal force while pumping iron as did people who merely listened to music during exercise....

FINALIST YEAR: 1981 HIS FINALIST PROJECT: Writing a new computer language WHAT LED TO THE PROJECT: In the late 1970s, before Apple and IBM scored big with their personal computers, companies such as Altos, Ohio Scientific and others cranked out the first generation of computers small enough to sit on an individual’s desk. In particular, the Processor Technology SOL-20 broke ground by being one of the first computers with a built-in keyboard....

When voters went to the polls in November, one outcome was certain: America would emerge as a nation deeply divided. President-elect Biden’s pledge to “unite and heal” will do little to remedy this reality unless good intentions are matched by bold policies that truly bring Americans together. Universal property—an innovative idea that goes beyond income to the economic bedrock of wealth—offers a way to move in that direction, one that could win support on both sides of the political aisle....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Between 850 BCE and 1600 CE, great civilizations thrived in Africa, yet few non-Africans have learned about them. While some may be familiar with the achievements of ancient Egypt, most of our knowledge of African history is tainted by the legacy of colonialism, racism and prejudice. As Europeans engaged in the scramble for Africa between the 17th and 19th centuries CE, they established systems that disrupted the oral traditions that preserved Africa’s history, and they created their own narratives that justified their occupation of Africa’s lands and their enslavement of its people....

More than 50 new alien planets — including one so-called super-Earth that could potentially support life — have been discovered by an exoplanet-hunting telescope from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The newfound haul of alien planets includes 16 super-Earths, which are potentially rocky worlds that are more massive than our planet. One in particular - called HD 85512 b - has captured astronomers’ attention because it orbits at the edge of its star’s habitable zone, suggesting conditions could be ripe to support life....

Last September I wrote my first column for Scientific American, and this September marks my last one. In writing on science issues relevant to our culture and society, there is an inevitable tension between sticking just to science issues and commenting on potentially hot-button social issues. I have tried during the past 12 months to strike some balance, but without fail those issues that stir the greatest outrage also stir the greatest interest....

As the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing approaches (on July 20), artifacts spanning a range of NASA’s manned space exploration program—from Mercury and Gemini to Apollo and beyond—are being made available to the public as expensive keepsakes. On July 16, Bonhams & Butterfields New York will auction off about 400 lots that include astronaut apparel and equipment, components taken from Apollo lunar and command modules, and photos and charts chronicling the space program’s early days....

Wine growers in Australia have long observed that changes in the climate bring their grapes to early maturity – leading to changes in the balance of flavors and aromas that could bring down the value of wine. But until recently, those observations had not been matched with the underlying causes of change over the decades. A new study in Nature Climate Change finds that warming and declines in soil moisture, but also vine management practices to lower yields to produce better-quality grapes, brought the fruit to early maturity....

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA—Nearly four years after political pressure shut down two trials that would have tested whether a once-a-day pill could prevent high-risk HIV-negative people from catching the AIDS-causing virus, there’s a surge of renewed interest in the concept, known as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP. Western doctors and organizations that funded the halted trials of the anti-HIV drug tenofovir in Cameroon and Cambodia say they’ve learned their lesson from the debacle in 2004 and 2005, when activist groups questioned the quality of medical care impoverished study participants would receive if they suffered side effects or the became infected by HIV....

The relics of Charlemagne, long on display at a treasury in Germany, are likely the real bones of the Frankish king, scientists say. Last Tuesday (Jan. 28) marked exactly 1,200 years since Charlemagne died in A.D. 814. To commemorate the occasion, a group of scientists at the Cathedral of Aachen gave a summary of the research that has been conducted on the king’s bones, stretching back to 1988. Like many saints whose body parts were scattered in various reliquaries, Charlemagne was not left to rest in one piece....

China’s efforts to improve urban air quality are often viewed as a helper for fighting climate change, but a new joint China-U.S. study says otherwise. The study—carried out by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tsinghua University in Beijing—was released last week. It shows that China’s strategies for cleaning up air do not necessarily lead to carbon dioxide emissions reductions. Sometimes, according to the study, the efforts could actually increase emissions....

Ever since Sputnik kicked off the age of space satellites more than fifty years ago, big institutions have dominated the skies. Almost all the many thousands of satellites that have taken their place in Earth orbit were the result of huge projects funded by governments and corporations. For decades each generation of satellites has been more complicated and expensive than its predecessor, taken longer to design, and required an infrastructure of expensive launch facilities, global monitoring stations, mission specialists and research centers....