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Life in space isn’t easy. Even basic hygiene, like clipping your fingernails, is a cosmic challenge without gravity, one astronaut says. A new video by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield shows exactly how complicated (and a little gross) it is to cut your nails in the weightless environment of space. Hadfield currently lives on the International Space Station, where astronauts are forced to devise inventive ways for dealing with basic bodily needs that many folks may take for granted on Earth....

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Bill McKibben is lanky, soft-spoken, scholarly and engaging. He may also be the closest thing the U.S. environmental movement has to a leader. And he’s in show business now. Still soft-spoken, but very, very angry. On a crisp night earlier this month, a mostly-Gen Next crowd filled the University of Vermont’s Allen Chapel to see the dress rehearsal of the coast-to-coast road show that McKibben hopes will ignite a campus movement....

Some of the money that President Trump will redirect toward a border wall could come from military efforts to strengthen defense facilities against the physical effects of climate change. Trump’s emergency declaration Friday grants him the authority to shift billions of dollars toward a border wall with Mexico. About $3.6 billion will come from a military construction account that holds $10 billion for a diverse set of projects, including efforts to prepare installations for rising sea levels....

Extreme weather could cause four times as much economic loss in the U.S. by 2050 as it does today—without any increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes or lightning. That is because the population will be larger and richer and because more Americans are moving to the Eastern seaboard, the Gulf Coast and other storm-ridden places. The frequency of natural hazards varies across the country (top), but nationwide, average annual losses from all of them over the past 50 years amounted to $10 billion to $13 billion (not including business disruption)....

A rechargeable, air-breathing battery that can store up to 10 times the energy of today’s conventional lithium ion batteries could be just the breakthrough that makes electric cars practical—if it ever leaves the laboratory. Scientists worldwide are searching for the right combination of materials that could make a working lithium–air battery a reality, not to mention stand up to the rigors of repeated charging and discharging. Today, however, chemists have unveiled a material that seems to do the trick: gold....

I have heard it said that some bar owners are quite prepared to walk up to anyone wearing Google Glass and smack them quite hard. This might seem a trifle antisocial. There again, that’s been said of Google Glass. And yet there seems to be a place where a touch of Google Glass violence might actually be legal, and even welcome. It’s called the NFL. Oakland Raiders punter Chris Kluwe is one of those who is a Google Glass Explorer....

Anyone who has ever had a pimple is familiar with the tissue redness, swelling, warmth and pain that mark an infection. This response, known as inflammation, has been recognized since ancient times. But the process, which is often set in motion by cells of the immune system, can also occur whenever tissue is damaged—even in the absence of a pathogenic organism—as, for example, when you stub your toe or, more seriously, suffer a heart attack....

A leaked draft copy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment report (AR5) surfaced earlier this summer and triggered a small tempest among climate bloggers, scientists and skeptics over revelations that a key metric, called the “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity” (ECS), had been revised downward. The ECS’s lower threshold had been extended by half a degree – from 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to 1.5 C (2.7 F) – indicating that a lower range of warming now fell within the IPCC’s range of “likely” possibilities....

The largest infrared telescope ever launched into space is almost at the end of its cosmic life, European Space Agency officials say. After nearly four years mapping the cosmos, ESA’s prolific Herschel Space Observatory is expected to exhaust its vital supply of liquid helium coolant in the coming weeks. Once that runs out, the Herschel observatory will no longer be able to continue its scans of the cold, early universe, ESA officials said....

Good news, if you haven’t noticed, has always been a rare commodity. We all have our ways of coping, but the media’s pessimistic proclivity presented a serious problem for Jurriaan Kamp, editor of the San Francisco-based Ode magazine—a must-read for “intelligent optimists”—who was in dire need of an editorial pick-me-up, last year in particular. His bright idea: an algorithm that can sense the tone of daily news and separate the uplifting stories from the Debbie Downers....

Drug Dilemma Beryl Lieff Benderly does an excellent job of summarizing the current state of the environment for access to experimental cancer drugs in “Experimental Drugs on Trial.” A bigger issue that Benderly does not discuss, however, regards how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies evaluate medicines for terminal disease states, particularly cancer. Built into the evaluation process is the assumption that the truly sick individuals allowed to participate in clinical studies generate treatment data that are directly relevant to earlier-stage patients....

This story is a supplement to the feature “Could Our Own Proteins Be Used to Help Us Fight Cancer?” which was printed in the July 2008 issue of Scientific American. A number of drugs currently in clinical trials would fight disease by taking advantage of the diverse functions of heat shock proteins. Some seek to inhibit the proteins, others to induce them, depending on the disorder and the HSP that is being employed or targeted....

Researchers insist they can tell someone’s politlcal affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Messy? You’re a lefty. A neatnik? Welcome to the Right. According to a controversial new study, set to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, the bedrooms and offices of liberals, who are generally thought of as open, tend to be colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia....

Ever since humans first ventured into space we’ve been enamored with gazing back at Earth, slowly revolutionizing our perceptions of our cosmic home across more than half a century of spaceflight. One of the biggest advances for viewing our planet from space was the creation of the International Space Station (ISS), an orbital outpost 400 kilometers overhead that has been continuously crewed since November 2000. Another was the 2010 installation of the ISS’s multiwindowed “Cupola” module that is custom-built for Earth observations....

After launching a payload into space from Cape Canaveral, Fla. this afternoon, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket almost landed in the history books when its first stage hit a bull’s-eye, vertically landing on a robotic barge in the Atlantic Ocean. The trouble was, the booster hit the bull’s-eye too hard, according to tweets from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shortly after the launch. Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival....

Ultraviolet (UV) light—the band of electromagnetic radiation nestled between visible light and x-rays—seems to cast a particularly amorous glow on the animal world. For instance, the budgie, an Australian parrot, is known to respond negatively to potential mates whose plumage has been stripped of its UV-induced fluorescence (wherein ultraviolet light is absorbed and light of a different, usually visible, wavelength is emitted). And although we humans cannot see UV light, as birds and many other animals can, we have incorporated lamps that produce it into some of our modern courtship rituals—just ask anyone who has ever hit the tanning beds in hopes of snaring a mate or any teen whose idea of setting the mood involves shining a black light on a Pink Floyd poster (which then, like the plumage of a budgie, fluoresces visible light)....

Justice Antonin Scalia and Keyser Soze agree: the greatest trick the devil could ever pull is convincing the world he didn’t exist. Fortunately for them, the devil does not seem to be effectively executing this plan. Some 70 percent of Americans, according to a 2007 Gallup Poll, believe in his existence. This personification of evil has implications beyond the supernatural, influencing how we think about what it means for people to be “pure evil....

This week marks the 10th time that Americans have commemorated National Voter Registration Day, an occasion designed to encourage the one in four adult citizens who are unregistered to become part of those who can participate in elections. So far this year at least 18 states have enacted laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote. And even when the right to vote is formally protected, the costs of doing so prevent many from making it to the polls, including STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students, who are less likely to vote....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. In 1204 CE the unthinkable happened and Constantinople, after nine centuries of withstanding all comers, was brutally sacked. Even more startling was the fact that the perpetrators were not any of the traditional enemies of the Byzantine Empire: the armies of Islam, the Bulgars, Hungarians, or Serbs, but the western Christian army of the Fourth Crusade....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The intoxicant known in English as beer' takes its name from the Latin bibere’ (by way of the German bier') meaning to drink’ and the Spanish word for beer, cerveza’ comes from the Latin word cerevisia' for of beer’, giving some indication of the long span human beings have been enjoying the drink....