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The first confirmed U.S. case of a traveler infected with the virus behind China’s continuing pneumonia outbreak has health authorities on alert to prevent it from spreading. The patient—a man in his 30s—returned from the country’s city of Wuhan (where the virus appears to have originated) to his home in Snohomish County in Washington State on January 15. He developed symptoms and sought treatment from his doctor on January 19, and a day later, a real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test confirmed he had the virus....

Before humans arrived, the Americas were home to woolly mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths and other behemoths, an array of megafauna more impressive than even Africa boasts today. Researchers have advanced several theories to explain what did them in and when the event occurred. A series of discoveries announced in the past four weeks, at first glance apparently contradictory, adds fresh details to the mystery of this mass extinction....

For every ton of carbon dioxide emitted by a power plant’s smokestack or a car’s exhaust pipe, some portion will stay in the Earth’s atmosphere, raising global temperatures, while the rest is absorbed by the oceans or ecosystems on land. But which parts of the ocean or biosphere act as net sources of carbon dioxide (CO2) and which take up more than they emit into the atmosphere, has been an open question....

Yes, failing … just like the coal ash ponds along the Dan River. What Put the Stuff on the Map Despitebeing a political football [pdf]that had been tossed around Capitol Hill, thecoal industryandEPA headquartersthroughout the ‘90s and early aughts, coal ash was rarely a topic of dinner conversation around most American supper tables I suspect. But in December 2008 coal ash got America’s attention, and especially so for people like TennesseanDeanna Copeland....

By James Regan SYDNEY (Reuters) - Tourists and coastal residents were evacuating parts of the Great Barrier Reef on Thursday as a powerful cyclone intensified in the Coral Sea and made its way towards Australia’s northeast. Cyclone Ita is forecast to make landfall on Friday north of the tropical city of Cairns, bringing with it the possibility of widespread flooding and damage, emergency officials said. Wind gusts of up to 280 kmh (175 mph) are forecast, bringing with them torrential rain, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said....

WASHINGTON — Our culture of sitting may be responsible for 173,000 cases of cancer each year, according to new estimates. Physical inactivity is linked to as many as 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer a year in the United States, said Christine Friedenreich, an epidemiologist at Alberta Health Services-Cancer Care in Canada. Breast and colon cancer appear to be the cancers most influenced by physical activity, according to the research we have to date, Friedenreich said, in presenting her findings here today (Nov....

Originally Published on the Octopus Chronicles Most octopuses get around primarily by crawling along the seafloor. And if they need to get somewhere in a hurry, they can employ their funnels to jet away like their pelagic cousins, squid. Researchers in Greece, however, have made a robot octopus that can propel itself through the water using only its eight arms. Their prototype, announced earlier this summer, has mastered a handful of different swim strokes—including some even the octopus itself can’t pull off....

A top manufacturer of household cleaners announced plans yesterday to eliminate a controversial plastics additive from its brand and voluntarily disclose all product ingredients. S.C. Johnson – maker of Windex, Shout and Glade – said that it has begun working with its suppliers to end the use of phthalates, which soften plastics. The move comes as lawmakers are debating regulations for many industrial chemicals as research suggests potentially serious health impacts....

A new scientific method may allow researchers to keep better tabs on the melting Arctic. For the first time, scientists have devised a technique to monitor the thickness of Arctic sea ice year-round — even in the summer, when it’s most difficult to do. The new method, outlined in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, may help to fill a longstanding gap in the satellite record when it comes to sea ice thickness....

In the 2014 book Dilemmas in Animal Welfare, Peter Sandøe, professor of bioethics at the University of Copenhagen, and his co-authors estimate that about one third of companion dogs in developed countries are overweight. On top of that, they suggest, “more than one in 20 is obese.” And yet people often do not realize that their dogs are hauling too many pounds. In a study published in 2011, University of Nottingham researchers asked owners to categorize their dogs as underweight, normal, overweight or very overweight....

The key to restoring movement and communication for the severely disabled may lie on the roofs of our mouths. Researchers have invented a device that allows the paralyzed to write, surf the Web and steer an electric wheelchair—all by sniffing. Initial tests, described recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, suggest that patients with severe paralysis may soon have a new way of doing everyday tasks. Sniffing is controlled in part by cranial nerves in the soft palate, the tissue lining the back of the roof of the mouth....

To most people, Wi-Fi is something of a miracle. Within 150 feet of some hidden base station, your laptop, tablet or phone can get online at cable-modem speeds—wirelessly. But Wi-Fi is also something of a mystery. So many readers ask me about Wi-Fi that I’ve hunted down the answers, once and for all, from the nation’s most expert experts. Often my laptop detects a four-bar Wi-Fi hot spot, but I can’t get online....

Editor’s Note: This slide show has been updated to include recent efforts to maintain and strengthen evolution education in science classrooms in U.S. public schools. Creationists continue to agitate against the teaching of evolution in public schools, adapting their tactics to match the roadblocks they encounter. Past strategies have included portraying creationism as a credible alternative to evolution and disguising it under the name “intelligent design.” Other tactics misrepresent evolution as scientifically controversial and pretend that advocates for teaching creationism are defending academic freedom....

Robert Kaplan, author of The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero and former professor of mathematics at Harvard University, provides this answer: The first evidence we have of zero is from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago. There, a slanted double wedge was inserted between cuneiform symbols for numbers, written positionally, to indicate the absence of a number in a place (as we would write 102, the ‘0’ indicating no digit in the tens column)....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Unlike the practice of professional numismatists, I prefer to see the “big picture”. So, my entire Roman coin collection, all 250 pieces, from Julius Caesar to Valentinian III is laid out on a single pane of glass in a cabinet, in chronological order. In an instant, in almost a single glance, I can take in hundreds of years of Roman history, and dozens upon dozens of rulers....

Did you like this interview? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Join World History Encyclopedia as they talk to Michael Levy, a prolific composer of the ancient lyre all about his inspiration and knowledge of the instrument. If you want to hear Michael perform, be sure to check out our video interview below. Michael LevyMichael Levy (Copyright) Kelly (WHE): Let us start with the inspiration behind your musical quest....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Debate Between Sheep and Grain (c. 2000 BCE) is one of the best-known Sumerian literary debates in a genre that was popular entertainment by the late 3rd millennium BCE. In this piece, personifications of grain and sheep argue which is more important, with grain judged the winner because sheep need grain, but grain needs no sheep....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. During the Year of the Four Emperors (69 CE), the fight between Vitellius and Vespasian would ultimately bring about the demise of four legions, the XV Primigenia, I Germanica, IIII Macedonica, and XVI Gallia. All four of these legions had previously served the Roman Empire with distinction under such leaders as Pompey and Octavian but made what turned out to be the wrong choice in 69 CE....

When then Harvard University president Lawrence Summers suggested in 2005 that innate differences between men and women may account for the lack of women in top science and engineering positions (and subsequently resigned), he was referring to the greater male variability hypothesis. Women, it holds, are on average as mathematically competent as men, but there is a greater innate spread in math ability among men. In other words, a higher proportion of men stumble mathematically, but an equally high proportion excel because of something in the way male brains develop....

Scientists sent patterns of electricity coursing across people’s brains, coaxing their brains to see letters that weren’t there. The experiment worked in both sighted people and blind participants who had lost their sight in adulthood, according to the study, published today (May 14) in the journal Cell. Although this technology remains in its early days, implanted devices could potentially be used in the future to stimulate the brain and somewhat restore people’s vision....