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As much as we might appreciate the value of detecting predators that approach from behind—or of keeping an eye on the offspring who follow us—it is important to remember that selection is not directed toward the development or formation of anything, let alone “perfect” organs. In other words, just because some feature seems like a good idea, random mutation and selection will not necessarily fashion it. Body parts that enable us to detect the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, temperature and tactile elements of our environment did not arise from some master plan or blueprint....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The life of wealthy Romans was filled with exotic luxuries such as cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, or silk acquired through long-distance international trade. Goods from the Far East arrived in Rome through two corridors – the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The use of different trading routes ensured a constant stream of exotic goods in the Roman Empire....

By Cassandra WillyardAn RNA molecule engineered to attack HIV in two different ways is showing positive results, according to a study in Science Translational Medicine. The researchers say that the molecule, which both curbs viral replication inside infected cells and neutralizes free-floating virus, could help patients who have developed resistance to HIV drugs. The molecule, known as a chimaera, is composed of two different types of RNA: a small interfering RNA (siRNA), designed to enter infected cells and block the expression of two genes that HIV needs to replicate, and an RNA sequence known as an aptamer, which binds tightly to gp120, a protein found on the surface of HIV and HIV-infected cells....

From Quanta Magazine (find original story here). In Dr. Seuss’s book “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back,” the Cat makes a stain he can’t clean up, so he calls upon the help of Little Cat A, a smaller, perfect replica of the Cat who has been hiding under the Cat’s hat. Little Cat A then calls forth Little Cat B, an even smaller replica hidden under Little Cat A’s hat....

Former Vice President Joe Biden secured the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House on Saturday, major news organizations projected, after election officials in a handful of swing states spent days in round-the-clock counting of millions of mail-in ballots and early votes. The Democrat’s victory came after the latest tallies showed him taking an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania, a state both Biden and President Donald Trump had long identified as vital to their election efforts....

Blindness is a private matter between a person and the eyes with which he or she was born. The sentiment expressed by the late Portuguese writer José Saramago in his famous novel Blindness may be appropriate for a person born unable to see. But what about the tens of millions of people worldwide who suffer from a variety of degenerative diseases that progressively rob them of their eyesight? The problem arises in the nerve cells that line the back of their eyes, their retinas....

The explosive volcano Sabancaya looms large over the hamlet of Maca in southern Peru. Smoky plumes frequently spew from the mountain and sometimes rain ash down on the town. But the geological threat that keeps Maca’s residents up at night is not 15 kilometres away at Sabancaya, but right underfoot. For about 30 years, the very ground around Maca has been in retreat. Some 60 million cubic metres of earth—the equivalent of more than 20,000 Olympic swimming pools—are slinking their way to the valley floor and taking part of the town with them....

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This principle, called conservation of energy, is one of our most cherished laws of physics. It governs every part of our lives: the heat it takes to warm up a cup of coffee; the chemical reactions that produce oxygen in the leaves of trees; the orbit of Earth around the sun; the food we need to keep our hearts beating. We cannot live without eating, cars do not run without fuel, and perpetual-motion machines are just a mirage....

By Barbara Lewis and Tom KörkemeierBRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Tuesday agreed a compromise to enforce stricter rules on carbon dioxide emissions for EU cars, ending months of wrangling after Germany insisted an earlier deal was torn up.The new outline agreement delays 100 percent implementation of a limit of 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer (CO2/km) for all new cars until 2021 from a previous deadline of 2020....

The human eye is an exquisitely complicated organ. It acts like a camera to collect and focus light and convert it into an electrical signal that the brain translates into images. But instead of photographic film, it has a highly specialized retina that detects light and processes the signals using dozens of different kinds of neurons. So intricate is the eye that its origin has long been a cause célèbre among creationists and intelligent design proponents, who hold it up as a prime example of what they term irreducible complexity—a system that cannot function in the absence of any of its components and that therefore cannot have evolved naturally from a more primitive form....

Dear EarthTalk: I thought “farm raised” was the way to go when buying fish, to avoid mercury contamination. But are there other concerns about farm-raised that make some fish a poor choice for good health? What are the safest fish to buy and which should be avoided? And what about those frozen blocks of fish I get at Trader Joe’s? Are they safe to eat?—Tim Jeffries, Springfield, Mass. Mercury is a neurotoxin that settles into the ocean in large concentrations after we spew it out of industrial smokestacks when burning fossil fuels like coal and oil....

When hormone replacement therapy was found to put some menopausal women at increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease, many went in search of safer treatments to decrease their symptoms. In the ensuing decade black cohosh has won out as an overwhelming consumer favorite, now reaping millions of dollars in sales each year. But controlled trials of this supplement have seen mixed results, sometimes showing it to be effective in relieving hot flashes, sleep disruptions, mood swings and other symptoms whereas other times revealing it to be ineffective....

I have never had as much suicidal ideation as I’ve had over the last year and a half, during this pandemic. I have not been in any particular physical danger. Thinking about ending one’s life can be an understandable coping mechanism to survive adverse conditions, such as living alone through a pandemic and going without touch or indoor companionship for months on end. I have a good therapist, and my ideas about suicide never progressed beyond thoughts towards making any plans to actually go through with it....

By Steve Quinn JUNEAU (Reuters) - Fast-melting Arctic sea ice has forced some 35,000 Pacific walruses to retreat to the Alaska shoreline, scientists from several federal agencies said on Wednesday. Walruses are accomplished divers and frequently plunge hundreds of feet to the bottom of the continental shelf to feed. But they use sea ice as platforms to give birth, nurse their young and elude predators, and when it is scarce or non-existent they haul themselves up on land....

Looks like Tiger Mom had it half-right: Motivation to work hard and good study techniques, not IQ, lead to better math skills, a new study shows. But there’s a catch: The findings, published this month in the journal Child Development, show that keeping children’s heads in the math books by force probably won’t help. The analysis of more than 3,500 German children found those who started out solidly in the middle of the pack in 5th grade could jump to the 63rd percentile by 8th grade if they were very motivated and used effective learning strategies, said lead author Kou Murayama, a psychology researcher at the University of California Los Angeles....

From Nature magazine Mathematicians plan to launch a series of free open-access journals that will host their peer-reviewed articles on the preprint server arXiv. The project was publicly revealed yesterday in a blog post by Tim Gowers, a Fields Medal winner and mathematician at the University of Cambridge, UK. The initiative, called the Episciences Project, hopes to show that researchers can organize the peer review and publication of their work at minimal cost, without involving commercial publishers....

NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket headed back to the launch pad Tuesday night (Aug. 19) to take a step closer to a landmark lunar mission. Artemis 1 is an uncrewed test flight of the huge Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and its Orion spacecraft, and it began the rollout to a Kennedy Space Center launch pad at about 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT Wednesday, Aug. 17). By 7:30 a.m. EDT, it had reached its destination....

One of the biggest challenges in robotics engineering is mimicking the human sense of touch. The ability to respond to texture and pressure is essential for delicate tasks, such as surgery. To that end, researchers have developed a new type of sensor that has a tactile sensitivity comparable to that of human fingertips–making it 50 times more sensitive than previously existing technology. The device, a so-called electroluminescent thin film, glows in response to applied pressure....

Getting Serious about Flu A combination of public health measures and technology raises hope for the flu fight As the specter of a global flu pandemic looms ever larger, both veteran flu scientists and newcomers to the field are making important progress against the disease. Robert G. Webster, now at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., first discovered during the 1960s that the novel flu viruses that seem to sweep through the human population every 30-odd years can arise from combinations of bird and human flu strains....

2016 is shaping up to be a milestone year for energy, and when the final accounting is done, one of the biggest winners is likely to be solar power. For the first time, more electricity-generating capacity from solar power plants is expected to have been built in the U.S. than from natural gas and wind, U.S. Department of Energy data show. Though the final tally won’t be in until March, enough new solar power plants were expected to be built in 2016 to total 9....