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On an island off Australia’s north-central coast, researchers are conducting an unprecedented experiment: mixing endangered animals that have evolved genetic defences against their biggest foe with those that haven’t, in the hope that their offspring will take after the wiser parent. The subject of the experiment is one of Australia’s most imperilled marsupials, the northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus). This squirrel-sized carnivore is struggling to survive a decades-long onslaught of poisonous and invasive cane toads, which quolls mistake as prey, with devastating results....

Clouds might seem like a nuisance if you’re headed on a Sunday afternoon picnic. But put aside your personal biases for a second and consider this: clouds can also tell the story of life on earth. That story has become a lot clearer thanks to new maps created by scientists that document a global year in the clouds in more intimate detail than ever before. The maps—a cloud atlas if you will—provide a fine-grained view of how clouds move around in our atmosphere and represent an important link between climate and ecological research....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Who is going to die by suicide? This terrible mystery of human behavior takes on particular poignance in the wake of suicides by high-profile and much-beloved celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. It is only natural that people want to know why such tragedies occur. Those closest to those who take their lives are often tormented, wondering if there is something they could have—or should have—known to prevent their loved one’s suicide....

The September 11, 2001 attacks initiated a flurry of advances in military technology over the past decade that has helped the U.S. and its allies redefine modern warfare. None of these advancements have had a greater impact on America’s missions in the Middle East than the maturation of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or, more generically, drones. The U.S. Army’s drone armada alone has expanded from 54 drones in October 2001, when U....

The US government surprised many researchers on October 17 when it announced that it will temporarily stop funding new research that makes certain viruses more deadly or transmissible. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is also asking researchers who conduct such ‘gain-of-function’ experiments on influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to stop their work until a risk assessment is completed — leaving many unsure of how to proceed....

This year’s slew of hungry pups washing ashore in California, which has generated a slew of media coverage replete with heart-tugging images, has roots in natural temperature fluctuations in the ocean. But in the coming decades, human-induced warming could make these types of conditions more common. And sea lion pups are just the tip of a larger shift in the Pacific and the rest of the world’s oceans if human emissions continue to warm the planet....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The so-called Vénus de Milo is perhaps one of the most iconic works of Western art of any period. The statue of the goddess was found on the Aegean island of Milos, to which she owes her name, on the eve of the Greek War of Independence (1821-1830 CE)....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Etruscans produced bronze goods going back to the Villanovan period (1100-750 BCE) and used the material for all manner of objects, but it is their figure sculptures which have become some of the star attractions in museums worldwide. Bronze was a highly desirable material throughout antiquity and easily melted down for reuse so that it is even more remarkable that such fine works as the Chimera of Arezzo and Mars of Todi have survived to bear testimony today of the exquisite artistry of Italy’s first great civilization....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. At its fullest extent, the Roman Empire stretched from around modern-day Aswan, Egypt at its southernmost point to Great Britain in the north but the influence of the Roman Empire went far beyond even the borders of its provinces as a result of commerce and population movements. Contrary to popular belief which holds that the Sahara Desert was an impossible obstacle to trade prior to the Middle Ages, the Romans had a robust and dynamic network of connections to Sudanic and Sub-Saharan Africa....

Users pinning away for tiny computers like the FXI Cotton Candy or Raspberry Pi have another option, albeit one that is now also hard to come by. Last week a Chinese retailer called Aliexpress began selling a $74 USB key-sized computer with an AllWinner A10 1.5-GHz CPU, 802.11g Wi-Fi, HDMI-out, both micro USB and full USB 2.0 ports, 512MB of RAM, 4G of Flash memory which is expandable up 32GB via a microSD card slot and Android 4....

Climate change skeptics have an arsenal of arguments for why humans need not cut their carbon emissions. Some assert rising CO2 levels benefit plants, so global warming is not as bad as scientists proclaim. “A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere would aid photosynthesis, which in turn contributes to increased plant growth,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R–Texas) wrote in an op-ed last year. “This correlates to a greater volume of food production and better quality food....

The most destitute regions of the planet—in Africa, Central Asia, the Andes and a few other places—are not merely poor: they are seemingly trapped in poverty and prone to internal violence and political collapse. The regional distribution of these poverty traps is not random. None are in Europe or North America. Asia now has only a few. Most of tropical Africa is in a poverty trap or barely emerging from one, but northern Africa and South Africa are not....

The war in Iraq is now four years old. It has cost more than 3,000 American lives and has run up a tab of $200 million a day, or $73 billion a year, since it began. That’s a substantial investment. No wonder most members of Congress from both parties, along with President George W. Bush, believe that we have to “stay the course” and not just “cut and run.” As Bush explained in a speech delivered on July 4, 2006, at Fort Bragg, N....

Since man’s discovery of fire, cooking has been mainly a process of subjecting food to high temperatures that chemically alter its color, taste and texture. But the invention of cryogenic technology has handed chefs an exciting new tool—liquid nitrogen—for transforming food in fun and surprising ways. In our culinary research laboratory, we use this ultra­-cold liquid to cryopoach oils, cryoshatter cheese, cryopowder herbs and cryograte meat. It is great for making instant ice cream and perfectly cooked hamburgers....

By Carey Gillam (Reuters) - DuPont will pay a fine of $1.275 million and spend an estimated $2.3 million more to settle claims by U.S. officials that the global chemical conglomerate failed to prevent toxic releases of hazardous substances in West Virginia that killed at least one man, environmental regulators said on Wednesday. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co reached the settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U....

These selections are our tribute to the scientists who are convening in Germany this summer for the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, at which some 600 up-and-coming young researchers will exchange fi ndings and ideas with 38 prize winners in physiology or medicine. Biochemistry Physiology By Edgar Douglas Adrian Published: September 1950 Nobel: 1932 The aim of physiology is to describe the events that take place in the body and incidentally to help the doctor by doing so....

Scientific American presents Tech Talker by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. In last week’s episode, The Dangers of Unsecured WiFi Hotspots, we talked about how to keep your computer and your personal information safe when surfing wirelessly. In that episode, I promised to follow up with how to use a VPN for ultimate security while on the go. I’ll make good on my promise today....

Scientists believe they’ve identified a key process affecting the melting of an enormous glacier in East Antarctica, bigger than the state of California. And the effects may only worsen with future climate change. New research published yesterday in the journal Science Advances suggests that wind patterns around the coast of Antarctica may help drive warm water up from the seafloor and into the cavities below East Antarctica’s Totten Ice Shelf, causing it to melt from the bottom up....

Scientists may have developed a new tool for combating malaria, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. After more than 20 years of genetic experimentation, researchers have discovered how to breed malaria-resistant mosquitoes that are unable to infect humans with their bites. “We see a complete deletion of the infectious version of the malaria parasite,” said Anthony James, a microbiology and molecular genetics professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the lead author of the report....

Lia Kvavilashvili sat in her office at the University of Hertfordshire, mentally reviewing a study she had recently published. She knew that there was a particular statistical measure that might have been useful in the study, but she could not remember its name. Frustrated, she got up to make a cup of tea. Suddenly the word “hurdle” popped into her mind, unannounced, uninvited. Kvavilashvili—who grew up in Georgia speaking Georgian, Russian and Estonian, and only started to learn English at age 13—had no idea what “hurdle” meant....