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A single neuron sits in a petri dish, crackling in lonely contentment. From time to time, it spontaneously unleashes a wave of electric current that travels down its length. If you deliver pulses of electricity to one end of the cell, the neuron may respond with extra spikes of voltage. Bathe the neuron in various neurotransmitters, and you can alter the strength and timing of its electrical waves. On its own, in its dish, the neuron can’t do much....

We can learn a lot from nature if we listen to it more—and scientists around the world are trying to do just that. From mountain peaks to ocean depths, biologists are increasingly planting audio recorders to unobtrusively eavesdrop on the groans, shrieks, whistles and songs of whales, elephants, bats and especially birds. This summer, for example, more than 2,000 electronic ears will record the soundscape of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, generating nearly a million hours of audio....

Trees are definitely our allies when it comes to taking in greenhouse gases and thus aiding in the fight against climate change. But new research suggests that forests might not be quite as helpful as we’d hoped. Computer models that predict how climate change will play out assume that as greenhouse gas concentrations go up, forests will take advantage of the additional carbon dioxide and grow a bit more, increasing their capacity to mitigate global warming....

How do spawning fish navigate back to the very same stream where they were born? Megan McPhee, research assistant professor at the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station, steers us to an answer: This behavior is best exemplified by salmon, which combine conventional open-water navigation and a keen sense of smell to find their way. Salmon can migrate out to sea to feed for several years before returning to spawn in the same stream, sometimes even the same section of stream, in which they were born....

Tay-Sachs disease seems to favor Jews of Eastern European descent. Cystic fibrosis has an affinity for Caucasians. Type 2 diabetes strikes Latin Americans and people of African descent more often than it does those of other ethnic groups, appearing at rates of incidence that are 90 and 60 percent higher, respectively, than in Caucasians. Researchers have been conducting studies such as the International HapMap Project–a global effort to catalogue common single-nucleotide variations, such as the addition, deletion or substitution of a base in the code of a gene–to get to the bottom of long-observed correlations between ethnicity and common complex diseases....

Ever been impressed with our modern world’s ability to produce meals that look like one food but which are actually made of something else—like a tofu burger or artificial crab meat? It’s actually an old trick. In medieval times fish was cooked to imitate venison during Lent, and celebratory banquets included a number of extravagant (and sometimes disturbing) delicacies such as meatballs made to resemble oranges, trout prepared to look like peas, and shellfish fashioned into mock viscera....

Geologists and biologists are about to pierce one of the world’s youngest islands: tiny Surtsey, which was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions off Iceland’s southwestern coast between 1963 and 1967. Next month, the team plans to drill two holes into Surtsey’s heart, to explore how warm volcanic rock, cold seawater and subterranean microbes interact. It will be the most detailed look ever at the guts of a newly born oceanic island....

Dear EarthTalk: I understand the Environmental Protection Agency recently took steps to limit pollution from power plants. What are the details?—Maddie Samberg, via e-mail In March 2012 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the first nationwide emission standards to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new coal- and gas-burning power plants. And while the operative word here is “new”—the standards would not apply to plants currently in operation or those that begin construction over the next year—they would effectively cut carbon emissions in half over the lifetime of a new power plant....

Dear EarthTalk: What does the budget sequester that recently took hold mean for the environment?—Jane Burgos, Los Angeles The sequester that went into effect March 1 is a budget measure that cuts federal spending across the board to the tune of $85 billion, meaning every federal agency is affected and must reduce discretionary spending. Indeed, the cuts are already having a negative impact on everything from air quality monitoring to extreme weather response capability to staffing at national parks....

Late in 2006 several events moved the U.S. and other countries closer to serious global negotiations to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is therefore timely to ask what a meaningful global agreement would entail. A solid starting point is the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty that binds countries to act on the problem and under which specific measures, such as the Kyoto Protocol, are adopted....

The accelerating pace of climate warming in the earth’s polar regions is spurring a new sense of scientific urgency. This past February 28 a camera onboard the NASA satellite Aqua caught a Manhattan-size floating piece of ice shelf in the act of disintegrating. Slabs continued to calve and break up throughout the next 10 days; by March 8 the Wilkins ice shelf, comprising some 5,000 square miles of floating ice off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had lost 160 square miles of ice to the Pacific Ocean....

A man whom his doctors referred to as “Mr. Wright” was dying from cancer of the lymph nodes. Orange-size tumors had invaded his neck, groin, chest and abdomen, and his doctors had exhausted all available treatments. Nevertheless, Mr. Wright was confident that a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen would cure him, according to a 1957 report by psychologist Bruno Klopfer of the University of California, Los Angeles, entitled “Psychological Variables in Human Cancer....

The Bureau of Land Management has authorized several new uranium exploration permits near the Grand Canyon despite a congressional resolution last year barring new claims near the national park. According to documents released yesterday [pdf] by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Grand Canyon Trust, BLM on April 27 authorized Quaterra Alaska Inc. to conduct eight uranium mine exploration operations at five separate projects north of Grand Canyon National Park and west of the Kaibab Plateau....

IF YOU HAVE heard about nanotechnology at all, you may be aware of its science-fiction-sounding hype. Proponents picture a future in which tiny bots would magically repair tissue to prolong our life span. On the dark side is the disturbing vision of “gray goo,” where self-replicating nanodevices destroy the planet. The reality of the burgeoning field of nanotech, however, is hardly less startling in its transformative potential. Some have proclaimed it “the next industrial revolution....

Microbes currently are used in mining to help recover metals such as gold, copper and uranium. Now researchers suggest bacteria could be enlisted for “bio-mining” in space, to extract oxygen, nutrients and minerals from extraterrestrial bodies such as the moon and Mars for use by future colonists there. More than a quarter of the world’s copper supply is currently harvested from ores using microorganisms. As such, geomicrobiologists Karen Olsson-Francis and Charles Cockell at The Open University in Milton Keynes, England, reasoned that microbes could get drafted for use in space exploration as well—“it’s just a question of transferring that technology to other planetary surfaces,” Cockell says....

1968 was not a good year on Planet Earth. Though such events can be seen as business as usual in the history of humanity, that year saw more than its share of antiwar and race riots; wars—both cold and hot; and assassinations that ripped the social and political fabric of the U.S. and the world. In December 1968, Apollo 8 lifted off with the audacious goal of carrying astronauts for the first time in history to another world—the moon....

Microplastics—minuscule, hard-to-degrade fragments of clothing fibers, water bottles and other synthetic items—have made their way into air, water and soil around the world. Now new research published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces shows a way to promote their deterioration, at least in water, with technology on an even smaller scale: microrobots. When added to water along with a bit of hydrogen peroxide, the bacterium-sized devices glom onto microplastic particles and begin breaking them down....

In September 2017, when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the storm first made landfall on a small island off the main island’s eastern coast called Cayo Santiago. At the time, the fate of Cayo Santiago and its inhabitants was barely a footnote in the dramatic story of Maria, which became Puerto Rico’s worst natural disaster, killing 3,000 people and disrupting normal life for months. But more than three years on, the unfolding recovery on the tiny island has something interesting to tell us about the critical role of social connections in fostering resilience....

The worst restaurant meal in America is not a burger and fries, but fried fish and dough, one advocacy group says. Out of all the unhealthy food choices out there, a meal at the fast-food seafood restaurant Long John Silver’s — the “Big Catch with Onion Rings” — won the title of worst restaurant meal, according to Center for Science and the Public interest, a consumer advocacy organization. The meal, which was added to the chain’s menu in May, consists of a large piece of breaded, fried haddock (7 to 8 ounces), hush puppies (fried cornmeal batter) and onion rings....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. At the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, a rag-tag barbarian force annihilated three Roman legions, leaving the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BCE to 14 CE) to nightly wander his palace, shouting for the defeated commander, Publius Quinctilius Varus, to give him back his legions. The defeat not only stopped the growth of the Roman Empire but also created the Latin-Germanic divide that persists in Western Europe to this day....