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Indore is the fastest-growing city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The industrial center has grown rapidly in the past 20 years, reaching a population of nearly 3.3 million people. But as the city grows in numbers, its water supply becomes increasingly insecure. Like many cities in the developing world, Indore’s water infrastructure and institutions face the mounting pressures of population and growth and urbanization. Experts worry that global warming will compound these problems, enlarging a category of people they call the “water poor....

The American Red Cross has provided record levels of disaster shelter this year as unprecedented hurricane and wildfire seasons forced massive evacuations and the COVID-19 pandemic made evacuees financially needy and reluctant to stay with relatives and friends. The Red Cross has furnished more than 1.2 million nights of sheltering so far this year to people fleeing disasters. That’s more than four times the disaster-related shelter assistance the organization provides in an average year....

Dinosaurs, Star Wars, train schedules, Disney princesses, maps, LEGO—subjects such as these can become all-consuming passions for children on the autism spectrum. What therapists and educators often call “circumscribed” or “restricted” interests (or, more generously, “special” interests) make up a characteristic symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current edition of psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes them as “highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus....

Last September, a group of scientists gathered to review the evidence on a new hypothesis: that the rapid warming of the Arctic was causing the jet stream to meander, leading weather systems to become “stuck” in places farther south, like over the United States and Europe. For example, a heat wave caught in a slow-moving, kinked-up jet stream might linger over a city like Chicago for days. Or a storm system could stall over Europe, dumping excess rain and leading to floods....

On August 2, 2010, a U.S. Navy helicopter wandered lazily into the skies of the highly restricted airspace that extends like an invisible dome over the American capital. The event might have merited nothing more than a routine log entry for air-traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, except for one disturbing detail. The helicopter had no human pilot. The aircraft had no cutout space for windows, and its cockpit was filled with nothing more than electronic instrumentation....

When Scott Moorehead tells people he cannot smell, they usually make a joke about how lucky he is—he must not be troubled by dirty diapers or people passing gas. “All the jokes are hilarious,” Moorehead says, with a hint of sarcasm. But his lack of smell also means he is vulnerable to natural gas leaks and burning food. He is self-conscious about his own scent, so he takes extra showers. And he has had to give up one of his favorite hobbies: matching wines with exotic flavors....

PUNATSANGCHHU, Bhutan – Traveling in this western Bhutanese valley is like going back in time before the Industrial Revolution, with only forests, rice paddies and scattered farming villages visible from the road. But after one more turn, the peaceful countryside life is suddenly replaced by chugging machinery. Welcome to the construction site of Bhutan’s Punatsangchhu-I hydropower plant. The debate around this project is as loud as the construction here. Supporters call it and future hydropower plants the only hope of lifting Bhutan out of poverty, while opponents castigate the plants for casting environmental and social costs on the world’s “happiest” nation....

Three scientists—Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Tsien—will share this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on green fluorescent protein (GFP), the Nobel Foundation announced today. Thanks to Shimomura’s 1962 discovery of GFP from the Aequorea victoria jellyfish, Chalfie’s demonstration of GFP’s use as a tag for DNA, and Tsien’s expansion of the technology, researchers today are able “to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread,” according to the Nobel Foundation....

Begun in 1990, the sequencing of the human genome was a daunting task that took some 13 years to complete. Large-scale DNA-sequencing projects are now more commonplace, so scientists are investigating new approaches in order to save time and money. A report published online by the journal Nature describes one such method that is 100 times faster than conventional ones. The novel sequencing technique, designed by Jonathan M. Rothberg of 454 Life Sciences Corp....

By Madeline Chambers BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s cabinet approved a new plan on Wednesday to slash CO2 emissions in order to meet its ambitious climate targets, but environmental groups criticized the government for not going further in reducing its reliance on coal-fired power plants. The package, which includes an energy efficiency program that could trigger billions of euros in investment, is essential if Germany is to hit its goal of a 40 percent drop in emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels....

A pioneering genetically modified (GM) wheat crop that emits an insect alarm pheromone to ward off pests has not worked in field trials, disappointed researchers say. Scientists at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural science institute north of London, had hoped that promising experiments in the laboratory — where the wheat did repel damaging aphids — would translate into the field, and would mean that crops could be grown using less insecticide. “The disappointing thing was when we tested it in the field we didn’t find any significant reduction [in aphids]....

Hair care products used primarily by black women in the U.S. contain a variety of chemicals that have been linked to asthma, hormone disruptions and even cancer, a recent study found. An analysis of 18 commonly used hair cosmetics such as relaxers (which chemically straighten hair), root stimulators and anti-frizz products detected 66 chemicals with potentially toxic effects. The majority of such compounds were not mentioned on the products’ ingredient labels, researchers say....

For five days after Hurricane Sandy hit on October 29, 2012, large swathes of Hoboken, N.J., remained underwater and in darkness. The small city covering five square kilometers hosts three substations for the regional electric grid, all of which were knocked out of service by flooding. Some residents had no electricity for as long as 15 days after the storm. As Mayor Dawn Zimmer walked around her municipality surveying the damage, she vowed to come up with a backup plan to keep the lights on in a catastrophe....

Would you rather watch a sunrise, or count the midnight stars? Do you have your creative energy and optimistic zeal when you pop out of bed in the morning, or when everyone else has gone to bed for the night? Or how about this—if you had to wake up at 6:00am, would you look and feel more like Mary Poppins or Oscar the Grouch? Your answers will depend on your chronotype, a biologically hardwired tendency for your body and brain to function best at certain times of day....

Constants of nature are expected to remain, well, constant, but physicists now find that the masses of protons or electrons might have varied over time. Researchers at the Free University of Amsterdam and their colleagues investigated the wavelengths absorbed by hydrogen gas irradiated with extreme ultraviolet laser beams in their laboratory. They compared it with readings taken at the European Southern Observatory in Chile from the glow of hydrogen clouds that had absorbed radiation from distant quasars, light that originated 12 billion years ago....

If there is anything you think astronomers would have figured out by now, it is how stars form. The basic idea for how stars form goes back to Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Simon Laplace in the 18th century, and the details of how they shine and evolve were worked out by physicists in the first half of the 20th century. Today the principles that govern stars are taught in middle school, and exotica such as dark matter dominate the headlines....

It is a question that has plagued solar physicists for decades: Why is the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere, the region farthest from the heat-producing core, hotter than both the lower atmosphere and the sun’s surface? Various explanations have been put forth, from sound waves or magnetic waves dissipating in the upper solar atmosphere, or corona, to short bursts of energy known as nanoflares erupting as tangled magnetic field lines in the corona reconnect....

Special Report: Pollution, Poverty, People of Color Communities across the US face environmental injustices Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the Special Report WORCESTER, Mass. – When doctors told Wanda Ford her 2-year-old son had lead poisoning, she never suspected that the backyard in her low-income neighborhood was the likely culprit. Ford knew that exposure to the heavy metal could be dangerous. So when she and her husband moved into the Lower Lincoln Street neighborhood, Ford, then pregnant, took steps to make sure their 100-year-old home was lead-free....

The early sun produced powerful x-ray emissions that may have helped to ensure the survival of our planet, scientists say. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that violent x-ray flares, which reached temperatures of 100 million kelvins, may have rocked the surrounding disk from which planets formed and prevented Earth from rapidly spiraling into the sun and being destroyed. An international team of astronomers focused Chandra on the Orion Nebula for 13 days, resulting in one of the instrument’s deepest observations yet....

Medical doctors can have the letters “MD” on their cars’ license plates, which in some places can help them bend the rules regarding parking and speeding in emergencies. But if you’re at all like me—and for the sake of your loved ones, let’s hope you’re not—you have one of three highly prejudicial and unfair reactions when you see a car with MD license plates. For a fancy vehicle: Ooh, look at Mr....