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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Colorado announced proposed rules on Monday designed to reduce emissions during oil and gas operations in an agreement with drillers that addresses one key environmental concern surrounding the U.S. oil and gas boom.The western state’s Air Pollution Control Division proposed new regulations to reduce the release of methane during production and transport of natural gas in a deal with energy producers Anadarko Petroleum, Noble Energy, Encana Corp and the Environmental Defense Fund....

COVID-19 triggers a strong immune response in most people. Yet several recent studies observed that the amounts of antibodies in those recovering from the virus appear to decline within a few months of infection. The findings set off a frenzy of speculation that immunity to the virus may not last long, throwing cold water on hopes for a vaccine. Many scientists say such worries are overblown, however. A June 18 Nature Medicine study conducted with a small group of patients in China showed that in both asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals with COVID-19, antibody levels dropped significantly during recovery—and that the levels became undetectable in 40 percent of the asymptomatic group....

For 20 years, even before the movement had a name, Hilton Kelley was fighting for environmental justice in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. The Gulf Coast city of 55,000 is home to a disproportionately high number of industrial polluters in relation to its population, as well as to the largest oil refinery in the country. When combined with its neighboring town of Beaumont, the region hosts one of the highest concentrations across Texas of facilities that emit chemicals toxic enough that they must be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency, according to agency data....

By Ron Cowen of Nature magazineThe European Space Agency (ESA) will forge ahead with ExoMars, an ambitious two-part robotic mission that would look for signs of life on the Red Planet, even though NASA has reneged on its promise to provide a launch rocket for the first stage of the mission.During a 12-13 October ESA council meeting in Paris, the agency decided to begin negotiations with Russia for a rocket that would launch the first stage of ExoMars, in 2016, in exchange for Russian participation in the mission....

In the carbon-rich boreal forests that extend across the globe just below the Arctic Circle, a vicious climate-wildfire cycle is playing out, one that poses both an accelerating climate threat and an unrealized opportunity to stanch a large and growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. Consider Alaska. This summer, wildfires spread across the state’s forests at a historic—and terrible—pace. From June through August, wildfires scorched more than 3.1 million acres across the state, an area larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks combined....

Suzanne Myers was sick, concerned and a little confused. Myers, a 55-year-old who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and her husband are both vaccinated and boosted against COVID, and in early spring they went to a weekend party with about 20 other people at the home of friends. On the Monday morning after the party, Myers woke up with a sore throat. “I thought maybe it was spring allergies,” she says. “Then I thought I should test....

Using lasers, scientists have chilled a dipolar molecule to a temperature just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero (around minus 273 °C)–an important step in the race to generate new kinds of ultra-cold matter that could be used for everything from quantum computing to chemistry.Edward Shuman, John Barry and David DeMille, all from Yale University in New Haven, Conn., used an old technique and several new tricks to cool molecules of strontium monofluoride (SrF) to just a few hundred microkelvin....

Scientists have recovered DNA from mammoth fossils found in Siberian permafrost that are more than a million years old. This DNA—the oldest genomic evidence recovered to date—illuminates the evolutionary history of woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths. It also raises the prospect of recovering DNA from other organisms this ancient—including extinct members of the human family. Ever since the recovery of two short DNA sequences from a recently extinct zebra subspecies known as the quagga in 1984, researchers have been working to get ever larger amounts of DNA from ever older remains....

By Steve GormanLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Faulty electrical equipment sparked the 10-day-old forest fire that had threatened the scenic mountain resort of Idyllwild in Southern California before cooler, rainy weather helped crews largely subdue the blaze, fire authorities said on Thursday.The so-called Mountain Fire charred 27,000 acres in mountains near Palm Springs, forcing the evacuation of several communities and destroying seven homes.The blaze, which was first reported on July 15, was 92 percent contained by Thursday evening, authorities said, as crews worked to mop up hot spots....

From Nature magazine Japanese scientists have used induced stem cells to create a liver-like tissue in a dish. Although they have yet to publish their results and much work remains to be done, the achievement could have big clinical implications. If the results bear out, they would also constitute a significant advance in the ability to coax stem cells to self-organize into organs. The work was presented by Takanori Takebe, a stem-cell biologist at Yokohama City University in Japan, at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Yokohama last week....

The year saw many developments that will have far-reaching and long-lasting implications, both practically and intellectually. Start the countdown below and go to the end to see some of the other important stories that didn’t quite make the cut. Image: Wim Lustenhouwer, VU University Amsterdam Symbolic Thought Shown to Exist in Other Human Species What distinguished Homo sapiens from other members of the human family and fueled our extraordinary success as a species?...

The bacteria that cause cholera infect the gut and bloody the stool of victims. Roughly 200,000 cases occur each year in Africa, India and Russia, among other places. The microbe that causes it—Vibrio cholerae—travels from host to host in water and on washed food, where it can persist for almost a week. Vaccines exist but provide short-lived protection; some require refrigeration from when they are brewed in an industrial vat to the moment they are injected into a patient....

Permafrost is not so permanent. Across the Arctic, swathes of once-frozen-solid ground have begun to thaw. If the records preserved in Siberian caves are accurate, much more of the region could melt if temperatures continue to warm. Geoscientist Anton Vaks of the University of Oxford led an international team of experts—including the Arabica Caving Club in Irkutsk—in sampling the spindly cave growths known as stalagmites and stalactites across Siberia and down into the Gobi Desert of China....

An interwoven molecular knot, shaped like the Star of David – a symbol commonly associated with Judaism – has been synthesised by David Leigh and colleagues at Manchester University, UK. The Star of David is a six-pointed star, made of two triangles that cross at six places. To make a microscopic version of the star, two molecular links, or catenanes, were woven together and each joined up in three places. In total, the star consists of six tris(bipyridine) ligands around six octahedral iron (III) centers....

Nearly one fifth of the U.S. adult population suffers from an anxiety disorder, according to 2018 data. At their core, the worry and panic that make up general anxiety stem from an overactive fear response in the brain. And indeed, that primordial reaction is one of the most examined topics in neuroscience— investigated in rodents, humans, other apes and even invertebrates. But how much do those automatic feelings relate to the emotions that humans associate with fear and, subsequently, their experience in the world?...

When you ask for opinions about what future humans might look like, you typically get one of two answers. Some people trot out the old science-fiction vision of a big-brained human with a high forehead and higher intellect. Others say humans are no longer evolving physically—that technology has put an end to the brutal logic of natural selection and that evolution is now purely cultural. The big-brain vision has no real scientific basis....

Used batteries from plug-in electric vehicles could help California meet its goals for energy storage, a report from the University of California, Los Angeles, and UC Berkeley law schools said. In a few years, there will be a growing number of EV batteries that have lost some of their ability to hold power, the analysis said. That will decrease the number of miles the car can go on a charge, making it less useful to some drivers....

The environmental case for ethanol from corn continues to weaken. Turning the food crop into ethanol would not be the best use of the energy embedded in the kernels’ carbohydrates, according to a new study in Science. That’s because fermenting corn into ethanol delivers less liquid fuel energy for internal combustion engines than does burning the kernels to generate power for electric motors. “We had been studying the area of land that would be available to grow crops for energy and we were curious to discover the most efficient use of these crops,” explains environmental engineer Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced, who led the study....

EarthTalk® E - The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: I understand that there are many internships available at environmental organizations, some involving working outdoors, some year-round with expenses paid. Where do I find these?—Jason Baar, Los Angeles Internships can provide professional experience and on-the-job training for individuals looking to enter the environmental field. There are numerous opportunities and the key is to know where to look. Many businesses, non-profits and governmental organizations offer internships that are environmentally focused and can range from office work in many different departments to working outdoors, some year-round and some short term....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Agriculture was the foundation of the ancient Egyptian economy and vital to the lives of the people of the land. Agricultural practices began in the Delta Region of northern Egypt and the fertile basin known as the Faiyum in the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000 - c....