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Nearly everyone who bends over the crib of a baby bursts into bubbling, musical tones to try to get the infant’s attention. This baby talk, or “motherese,” is widely considered to be a universal feature of human language, but now scientists report that a similar phenomenon might exist in other species—a finding that could help explain baby talk’s evolution. Rhesus monkeys use special vocalizations called grunts and girneys when they are around infants, but most researchers had believed the monkeys were directing the sounds at the mothers holding the babies....

The U.S. has reached a worrying plateau in its COVID-19 vaccination coverage, with just half of the population fully vaccinated. This coincides with pandemic fatigue, or weak compliance with COVID-19 risk-mitigation measures such as masking and distancing, and the highly infectious Delta variant, which accounts for more than 83 percent of infections. We’re at an inflection point in the pandemic, with coronavirus infections soaring by about 140 percent in the past two weeks....

Get ready to take the stage with Paul McCartney. If that’s not your thing, you can test-drive the latest SUV before it’s available in showrooms or experience a movie as though you’re in the scene. That’s been the promise of virtual reality (VR) for years, although stepping into an immersive three-dimensional virtual world has always required expensive stereoscopic head-mounted displays and other specialized equipment. A new, more accessible form of virtual reality delivered via the Web promises to let people experience digital worlds in 3-D using head-mounted displays connected to a variety of browser-enabled devices....

WASHINGTON — President Trump will instruct the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency, the administration said Thursday. It is a major step in combating the drug epidemic and a major follow-through on a longstanding presidential promise. But White House officials were quick to caution that the administration’s response won’t end with the declaration, with a number of new rules and actions expected to be issued in the coming weeks....

As the Omicron variant continues to spread wildly, millions of people are worried they have been exposed—and are desperate to find out if they are infected. But in many areas, at-home rapid antigen tests are difficult to find, and PCR tests—if an appointment is available—can take days to return a result. So if you can get your hands on a precious test, when is the best time to use it for the most accurate result?...

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The magnificent temple on the Acropolis of Athens, known as the Parthenon, was built between 447 and 432 BCE in the Golden Age of Pericles, and it was dedicated to the city’s patron deity Athena. The temple was constructed to house the new gold and ivory cult statue of the goddess by the master sculptor Phidias (also Pheidias) and to proclaim to the world the success of Athens as leader of the coalition of Greek forces in the Persian Wars....

The Great Basin, one of North America’s most important habitats for migratory birds, is getting warmer, drier and saltier—and that’s a problem for some of the species that call it home. Killdeer, snipes, terns and grebes are among those already harmed, and scientists are concerned that more species might be hurt. The Great Basin is the continent’s largest continuous network of wetlands. It spans from Oregon, crosses Nevada and into Utah, and it touches parts of California, Idaho and Wyoming....

Just because you are smart doesn’t mean you can balance a checkbook, or tackle any of the other tasks that might make you wealthy. A detailed study of 7,000-plus Americans followed since their teen years in the late 1970s reveals that intelligence provides more earning power but not necessarily more accumulated wealth. “The smarter you are, the more income you have,” explains economist Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University, who analyzed the data....

The scene at first resembles many that play out daily in the war-torn Red Zone of southern Afghanistan: a pair of Black Hawk helicopters descend on a hillside near the country’s southern border with Pakistan. As the choppers land, U.S. marines leap out, assault rifles ready. But then geologists sporting helmets and heavy ceramic vests jump out, too. The researchers are virtually indistinguishable from the soldiers except that they carry rock hammers instead of guns....

By Natasha GilbertAfrican forest-dwelling elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are a separate species from those living in the African savanna (Loxodonta africana), researchers have shown.Scientists have long debated whether African elephants belong to the same or different species. They look very different, with the savanna elephant weighing around 7 tonnes – roughly double the weight of the forest elephant. But studies had suggested they were the same species – DNA in mitochondria (the cell’s energy factories) from African elephants found evidence of interbreeding between forest and savanna elephants around 500,000 years ago....

Thirty years ago, a Canadian marine biologist noticed something mysterious was happening to beluga whales in the St. Lawrence Estuary. Decades of over-hunting had decimated the population, but several years after the government put a stop to the practice, the belugas still hadn’t recovered. Two decades and hundreds of carcasses later, he had an answer. “They were dying of cancer,” said Daniel Martineau, now a professor of pathology at the University of Montreal....

From plastics to flame retardants, the ubiquitous chemicals of our daily lives have raised public health concerns like never before. Inside the Beltway, however, data-crunching scientists are often no match for industry lobbyists and corporate lawyers. The exception, no doubt, is Linda Birnbaum, the toxicologist who leads, two little-known scientific agencies, the National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Last April, Birnbaum sat inside a Capitol Hill conference room packed with poker-faced chemical industry executives ready for a showdown....

Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study. Children under 5, who are exposed from drinking water as well as their mothers’ breast milk, had 44 percent more of the chemical in their blood than their moms. The study was undertaken by a court-approved panel of three scientists who have spent seven years trying to determine whether the DuPont chemical is making people sick in the Mid-Ohio Valley....

Key concepts Art Visual perception Photography Composition Introduction Do you like to preserve a moment with a photo or tell a story with pictures? It can feel very rewarding to capture an experience in a compelling photo; it can also be disappointing when the image does not convey what you were seeing or what you had in mind. You might wonder what makes some photos mesmerizing and gripping, whereas others look dull, empty or less appealing....

Earth got a close shave from an asteroid similar in size to the one that produced the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Siberia. The object, dubbed 2009 DD45, zipped past on March 2 at about twice the distance of geostationary orbit and only days after its discovery. Its orbit intersects Earth’s, but the rock will not get anywhere near this close for another 58 years. Approximate diameter of 2009 DD45: 35 meters Speed relative to Earth: 8....

Diversity is good, goes the conventional wisdom of the business world: companies that look and think more like the spectrum of their customers serve their clientele better. With a greater number of perspectives brought to a problem, diversity opens up new opportunities for synergistic information sharing, lifting a team’s creativity and work quality, proponents say. Successes such as inventing cosmetics for women with various skin tones, employing Spanish-speaking sales representatives, and marketing vacations to locations of historical importance to African-Americans readily come to mind....

A band of spring showers is chasing me along a stretch of beachside road near Los Angeles. I’m pedaling hard to stay ahead of it, but the prospects are diminishing. The narrow tires of my road bike hiss on the dampening asphalt. Although I’m enjoying my little race with nature, I keep glancing back over my shoulder at this fast-moving mantle of weather like it’s a posse in hot pursuit. I’ve traveled this same highway before, but always sealed inside an automobile, insulated from the exhilarating sensation I’m having right now: the feeling of skimming between sea foam to one side of me and striated cliff faces to the other....

By Letitia Stein and David Adams (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday that recent liver surgery revealed he had cancer that had spread to other parts of his body. His statement did not indicate where the cancer originated. “I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment by physicians at Emory Healthcare,” Carter, 90, said in a statement. “A more complete public statement will be made when facts are known, possibly next week....

WE SAY something is “rocket science” when it is stunningly complex. But perhaps “neuroscience” would be a more apt metaphor—the more we learn about the brain, the more new questions arise. Case in point is a seemingly simple question: How do brain cells communicate? We know they use chemicals to send messages to one another. But exactly how do neurons release these neurotransmitters and then ready themselves to send out another rapid-fire message?...

When the Atlantic Navigator docked in Baltimore harbor earlier this month, the freighter carried the last remnants of some of the nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union had brandished in the cold war. During the past 20 years more than 19,000 Russian warheads have been dismantled and processed to make fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors. In fact, during that period more than half the uranium fuel that powered the more than 100 reactors in the U....