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Knowing how proteins behave inside individual human cells can tell us whether those cells will live, die or malfunction—information that can serve as an early warning of disease. But such detailed information is hard to come by because today’s analytical methods require minimum samples of hundreds to thousands of cells. Now, however, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a “molecular microscope” for detecting and identifying proteins within samples of only a few cells—or even a single cell—and have used it to distinguish between diseased and healthy tissue....

Call it the ultimate in high art: Using a well-timed laser, NASA scientists have beamed a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, to a powerful spacecraft orbiting the moon, marking a first in laser communication. The laser signal, fired from an installation in Maryland, beamed the Mona Lisa to the moon to be received 240,000 miles (384,400 km) away by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009....

Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction Annalee Newitz Doubleday, 2013 ($26.95) Newitz, a science journalist and founding editor of the Web site io9, set out to write about the looming disaster of the sixth mass extinction but instead found hope for humanity’s endurance. Natural history is riddled with survivors’ tales, she writes. For example, the Lystrosaurus, a reptile ancestor of mammals, probably relied on large lungs and underground tunnels to persevere in a low-oxygen world created by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions....

Days after Russia invaded Ukraine, multiple social media platforms—including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube—announced they had dismantled coordinated networks of accounts spreading disinformation. These networks, which were comprised of fabricated accounts disguised with fake names and AI-generated profile images or hacked accounts, were sharing suspiciously similar anti-Ukraine talking points, suggesting they were being controlled by centralized sources linked to Russia and Belarus. Russia’s Internet Research Agency used similar disinformation campaigns to amplify propaganda about the U....

The search for extraterrestrial life is one of the most exciting frontiers in astronomy, and the recent detection of a potential biosignature in the atmosphere of Venus has now raised the possibility that life might exist on the nearest planet to Earth. Absorption of light at millimeter wavelengths by phosphine molecules has been identified in the Venusian cloud deck 35 miles above ground level, where the temperature and pressure are similar to what they are in the lower atmosphere of Earth....

Electricity controls much of the human body: consider the electrical firing of neurons and the current transmitted by the heart. Yet historically the electrodes that have been used in medicine to monitor and regulate essential activity have been biologically incompatible because they are stiff, big and water-sensitive. Now scientists are setting new standards with their designs for flexible, stretchable and waterproof circuits and electrodes that mimic the properties of human tissues....

For more than 200 years, scientists have documented the changing seasons across the British Isles. Now, these long-term records have revealed a concerning trend. Spring—defined by the blooming of flowers after a long winter—is arriving nearly a full month earlier than it used to. The findings were published yesterday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a biological sciences journal published by the United Kingdom’s national science academy. The study drew on more than 400,000 individual observations of flowering plants from around the United Kingdom, dating all the way back to the year 1753....

After waiting in the long customs queue at JFK airport in New York City a few years ago, I found myself before an agent with a dour expression. He wondered: What kind of work, exactly, requires a trip to Europe and back in less than three days? As I drew breath to explain my job as an editor at Scientific American, his eyes dropped to the slim volume in my hand, and he suddenly beamed....

WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - A winter storm reaching from Texas to New England closed schools, canceled more than 3,400 flights and stranded hundreds of drivers overnight in Kentucky, where as much as 21.5 inches (55 cm) of snow fell. A plane slid off the runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, according to the New York City fire department. The Federal Aviation Administration said on its website that the airport was closed because of an “aircraft incident....

Growing up in a stressful social environment leaves lasting marks on young chromosomes, a study of African American boys has revealed. Telomeres, repetitive DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes from fraying over time, are shorter in children from poor and unstable homes than in children from more nurturing families. When researchers examined the DNA of 40 boys from major US cities at age 9, they found that the telomeres of children from harsh home environments were 19% shorter than those of children from advantaged backgrounds....

EVERY DOG OWNER knows a pooch can learn the house rules—and when she breaks one, her subsequent groveling is usually ingratiating enough to ensure quick forgiveness. But few people have stopped to ask why dogs have such a keen sense of right and wrong. Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates regularly make the news when researchers, logically looking to our closest relatives for traits similar to our own, uncover evidence of their instinct for fairness....

In the second week of November, central Indiana is a patchwork of tawny and black: here a field covered with a stubble of dried corn and soybean plants; a little far­ther on, bare earth where the farmer has plowed under the residue of last summer’s crop. This is soil that wants to grow things, and already if you look closely you can see some shoots of fall weeds: chickweed, cressleaf and purple nettle....

Ever since you’ve moved into your new place, things haven’t gone quite right, have they? You didn’t get the promotion to senior office librarian. You suspect your lover is seeing someone else. And then there’s those weird feelings when you go into the second bedroom. It’s not that you get a shiver down your spine. It’s that something doesn’t seem quite right, as if your possessions have been moved a few inches away from where you left them....

Editor’s Note: This story was originally printed in the June 2008 issue of Scientific American. June 30, 1908, 7:14 a.m., central Siberia—Semen Semenov, a local farmer, saw “the sky split in two. Fire appeared high and wide over the forest…. From … where the fire was, came strong heat…. Then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few yards…. After that such noise came, as if ....

The magazine Playgirl famously launched as a source of sexual imagery targeted at (presumably heterosexual) women. It just as famously ended up with a readership of mostly homosexual men. The fate of the phallically bountiful periodical seemed to confirm the popular modern belief that women don’t find such visual stimuli particularly arousing. And some subsequent scientific findings appeared to validate that conventional wisdom, suggesting that men and women’s brains differ in their responses to sexual imagery....

“I throw more power into my voice, and now the flame is extinguished,” wrote Irish scientist John Tyndall about his experiments with sound and fire in 1857. Countless public demonstrations and a handful of lab tests later, researchers are still struggling to determine exactly how sound snuffs flames. Sound travels in waves, which are simply variations of pressure in a medium—whether solid, liquid or gas. The energy from vibrating objects, such as speaker membranes, moves from particle to particle in the air in a repeating pattern of high- and low-pressure zones that we perceive as sound....

Can you remember who your best friend was in seventh grade? If you are having difficulty, it could be because relationships at that age are often short-lived. Half don’t last a year. The friendships that do last can be predicted based on demographic and behavioral similarities, according to new research from psychologist Brett Laursen of Florida Atlantic University. “There is a lot of change during middle school, and that change makes it hard to maintain friendships,” Laursen says....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. For the Incas finely worked and highly decorative textiles came to symbolize both wealth and status, fine cloth could be used as both a tax and currency, and the very best textiles became amongst the most prized of all possessions, even more precious than gold or silver. Inca weavers were technically the most accomplished the Americas had ever seen and, with up to 120 wefts per centimetre, the best fabrics were considered the most precious gifts of all....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The story of Ruth and Naomi is found in the book of Ruth in the Jewish Scriptures. The Scriptures are traditionally divided into three sections: Torah (the first five books assigned to Moses), the Prophets (Nevi’im), and Writings (Ketuvim, where we find Ruth). Chronologically, the book falls within the period of the Book of Judges and 1 Samuel, books which relate the settlement of the twelve tribes of Israel in the land of Canaan after their escape from Egypt (Exodus)....

In 1989 when scientists discovered the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis, a serious hereditary disorder that primarily strikes children of European descent, it seemed as though a long-hoped-for cure might soon follow. After all, tests in many laboratories showed that providing normal copies of the gene should enable patients to make healthy copies of the protein specified by the gene. If successful, that feat would go a long way toward restoring health in the tens of thousands of people around the world who suffered from cystic fibrosis and typically died in their late 20s....