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The global demand for seafood is high, and over the past several decades the harvesting of wild fish from the oceans has grown into a huge business. In the 1950s most of the world’s commercial fisheries were concentrated in the northern Atlantic and Pacific, near the coasts of heavily industrialized nations such the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. Since that time the industry has expanded rapidly southward, and into deeper waters in search of more fish to satisfy the growing market and to compensate for depleted legacy fisheries....

Times of recessions often cause people to tighten their purse strings. During the 2007-2009 recession, more than half of Americans experienced some type of economic hardship, such as the loss of a job or a reduction of hours. As a result, overall spending decreased in luxuries like vacations and alcohol, and necessities such as food. Some people even moved back in with their parents. However, while some people returned to their childhood home to conserve money, recent research actually suggests that for some people, childhood conditions not only shape our spending decisions, but actually cause some people to spend more impulsively in times of a recession....

Enter the Inuvik Community Greenhouse in late July and you’re met with the smell of moist earth, lush kale beds, perky sunflowers and strawberries dangling like gems from vertical hydroponic grow stations. In this indoor Eden it’s easy to forget you’re just 60 miles south of the ice-capped Arctic Ocean in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Built 20 years ago within a converted hockey arena, this 16,000 square-foot greenhouse offers a welcome source of fresh produce in a region where food security suffers in part due to climate change and also sheer remoteness....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. A Praise Poem of Shulgi (c. 2020-2000 BCE) is an ancient Sumerian document celebrating the famous run of 200 miles (321.8 km) in one day made by the king Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE) to distinguish his reign by officiating at the religious festivals in the cities of Nippur and Ur on the same day....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Many myths and falsehoods concerning the Egyptian practice of mummification have been promoted to the general public in movies, television shows, and documentaries. While these offerings are entertaining and fascinating to watch, the purposes and details regarding the ancient preparation of the dead were quite complex, technically and culturally....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. After securing the eastern Mediterranean seaboard and Egypt, Alexander the Great pushed east into Mesopotamia with the intention of bringing Darius to battle. After crossing the Euphrates River unopposed, he marched his army eastward along the foothills of the Armenian mountains before crossing the Tigris River. Once across the Tigris, Macedonian mounted scouts reported seeing Persian cavalry in the distance....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Home to some of the Middle East’s most majestic ancient ruins, Lebanon has a rich and varied heritage with over 5,000 years of recorded history. Over the millennia, different conquering empires have left their footprints on the architecture and culture of the country. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and various Arab dynasties have all populated its shores, leaving a stunning archaeological history to explore....

From Quanta Magazine (find original story here). About 8 million to 12 million years ago, the ancestor of great apes, including humans, underwent a dramatic genetic change. Small pieces of DNA replicated and spread across their resident chromosomes like dandelions across a lawn. But as these “dandelion seeds” dispersed, they carried some grass and daisy seeds — additional segments of DNA — along for the ride. This unusual pattern, repeated in different parts of the genome, is found only in great apes — bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and humans....

Better lithium ion batteries have led to an explosion in availability of plug-in passenger cars. And now, thanks to relatively cheap electricity and the simplicity of the electric drivetrain, electric vehicles have even more potential for use in the extremely cost-sensitive public transportation arena—a concept that is only just taking root. In particular, two projects funded mostly by grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)—better known as the stimulus package—are pioneering new ways that public transit systems both large and small can think about total cost to operate buses and their environmental impact in the burgeoning era of cheaper, large format, lithium ion batteries....

We all know that person. Her Instagram is covered with more pictures of feline friends than human companions. Not an insignificant number of these pictures feature mini cat-sized lattes with the caption “Fluffy simply adores her morning coffee.” And let us not forget that the archetype of crazy cat man may be just as prevalent. When you look at these pictures, you probably wonder: is he like this because of the cat?...

Are food cravings the body’s way of telling us that we are lacking nutrients? —J. SHELTON, OGDEN, UTAH Peter Pressman of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., and Roger Clemens of the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy explain: A hankering for particular foods is not linked to any obvious nutrient insufficiency. But other biological factors appear to be at work. Researchers have employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neural basis of such appetites....

Size seems to matter—for certain kinds of intelligence —according to a new study by Sandra Witelson, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at McMaster University in Ontario. Witelson asked 100 terminally ill cancer patients to take a series of cognitive tests. After each person died, she and her colleagues measured the volume of the subject’s cerebral hemispheres. On average, women with larger brains had performed better on verbal tests than women with smaller brains had....

A Global Killer The number of people who die from cancer varies greatly around the world, often because of differences in behaviour and healthcare. Age-Old Problem A dramatic change happens around the age of 20, when the main cancers being diagnosed in the United States start to shift from mainly leukaemia to predominantly digestive, prostate, lung and breast. Money Matters In 2013, the US National Institutes of Health spent US$2....

Key concepts Physical science Chemical elements Chemical reactions Introduction What happens when you mix two common kitchen chemicals with a little food coloring, paintbrushes and friends? Find out with this bubbly sidewalk activity that acts like an art project but is really super scientific. It’s is a great way to introduce kids to chemical reactions in physical science, yet keep the mess outside. Background Acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate might sound super specialized, but they are the main compounds in two popular household products: vinegar and baking soda....

About 4,100 years ago, coral reefs in Panama violently collapsed and ceased growing for the next 2,500 years. Intrigued, a Florida graduate student, her adviser and a team of researchers set out to discover why. By analyzing the chemical signatures of six coral reef cores taken from multiple sites in the Pacific Ocean around Panama, the scientists found an extreme weather event associated with what we would call La Niña today triggered the reef collapse....

Television’s troika of CSI shows–CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY–arguably presents popular culture’s most positive view of scientists since the Professor was engaged in his unfunded better-living-through-coconut-chemistry project on Gilligan’s Island. In February, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., a group of real forensic scientists put the CSIs under the microscope. The fictional series have inadvertently put pressure on real-life prosecutors....

The late Ruth Bader Ginsberg told us, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” Yet high-level decision-makers in the U.S. federal government have continued to be overwhelmingly white and male, especially when it comes to science leadership positions. From a historic lack of federal leadership on environmental justice to health disparities born of systemic racism and economic inequality, science policy reflects and amplifies inequities within science. The Biden administration has a huge opportunity to change the face of scientific decision-making, particularly amidst a global pandemic, calls for racial justice from research institutions across the country, and the looming impacts of climate change....

In late 2016 the government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). A few months later the rebel group disbanded, abandoning the battle camps and handing over thousands of weapons. The deal put an end to the longest-running armed conflict (pdf) in the Western Hemisphere, according to the International Center for Transitional Justice. It also emptied the territories FARC had dominated for so long, including the dense forests that provided cover and refuge against the government forces....

In the midst of contemporary science’s stunning discoveries and innovations – for example, 2017 alone brought the editing of a human embryo’s genes, the location of an eighth continent under the ocean and the ability to reuse a spacecraft’s rocket boosters – it’s easy to forget that there’s an ongoing debate over science’s capacity to save humankind. Seventy-five years ago, two of the best-known literary figures of the 20th century, H....

Every day we all engage in a surprising number of habitual behaviors. Many of them, from brushing our teeth to driving a familiar route, simply allow us to do certain things on autopilot so that our brains are not overtaxed by concentrating on each brushstroke and countless tiny adjustments of the steering wheel. Other habits, such as jogging, may help keep us healthy. Regularly popping treats from the candy dish may not....