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The magnitude-7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25 has devastated the resource-poor Himalayan nation. Numerous houses and buildings have collapsed, and the quake triggered landslides and avalanches that engulfed remote villages. Officials in Nepal say that the quake has affected more than 8 million people. More than 6,100 have died and roughly 13,900 are injured. Pradeep Mool, a geologist and remote-sensing expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, talks to Nature about the earthquake—and how scientists are assisting in rescue and relief efforts....

A family of lions takes a midday nap in the middle of a road in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. On a nearby golf course, a lioness sips water from a pond while spotted hyenas and African wild dogs play wrestle on the grass. Halfway around the world, a herd of wild goats feasts on a Welsh town’s manicured lawns and hedges. And in California, black bears wander through empty campgrounds....

Even below the water’s surface, researchers are harnessing renewable energy to power systems that stalk the ocean to watch ships, monitor the weather and report on climate change. Whether for submarines or sensors, researchers need to get electricity to remote parts of the ocean and use it judiciously. “There are very few options for a sustainable power source underwater,” said Phillip Jenkins, head of the imagers and detectors section at the U....

Key concepts Liquids and solids Viscosity Pressure From National Science Education Standards: Properties of objects and materials Introduction Why is it so hard to get out of quicksand? Is it a solid? Is it a liquid? Can it be both? In this activity, you will make a substance that is similar to quicksand—but much more fun. Play around with it and find out how it acts differently from a normal liquid and a normal solid....

The contested Keystone XL pipeline could have a greenhouse gas impact that is four times greater than that estimated by the State Department, according to a new peer-reviewed study that is set to rejuvenate a multi-year debate about the project’s climate footprint. Indeed, the research, published yesterday in Nature Climate Change, sparked a renewal of the back-and-forth associated with the TransCanada line: Supporters said the paper was irrelevant, while opponents said it highlighted significant flaws with State Department environmental analyses....

Standard hearing aids capture sound via a microphone and then send an amplified version to an earpiece. They work well in relatively quiet, intimate settings, but in public spaces filled with background noise, most users find them of little use. A simple technology that sidesteps the problem, long available in Europe, has finally begun entering the U.S. market. Advocates hope that with the success of pilot projects, the hearing impaired will be able to find public address announcements and other kinds of speech more intelligible....

WASHINGTON — In a stunning split with President Bush, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has called for the ban on new federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to be lifted, charging that it is hobbling scientists’ ability to find new cures and treatments. “The answer is yes,” Elias Zerhouni told a Senate panel this week when asked if he believes the limit is stifling efforts to find new medical breakthroughs....

Physicists have spent centuries grappling with an inconvenient truth about nature: Faced with three stars on a collision course, astronomers could measure their locations and velocities in nanometers and milliseconds and it wouldn’t be enough to predict the stars’ fates. But the cosmos frequently brings together trios of stars and black holes. If astrophysicists hope to fully understand regions where heavenly bodies mingle in throngs, they must confront the “three-body problem....

In 2013 Mériam’s husband kidnapped their daughter and left to join the jihad in Syria. Once there he began sending chilling text messages back home, expressing his wish to die as a martyr alongside their child. By the time our disindoctrination team got to Mériam, she was distraught. We advised her to keep communicating with her husband and to follow one basic rule: Do not confront him about his ideology or his plan....

The richest people are releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide compared with lower-income people, according to a new report. This idea of “emissions inequality” underscores how nations that are contributing to climate change the most are disproportionately affecting regions that produce far less greenhouse gases. But the report by the World Inequality Lab also shows that the wealthiest citizens of the U.S. and other countries are more responsible for rising temperatures than people who earn less money in those same nations....

This week the U.S. elected businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump as its 45th president. As Scientific American has reported in the run-up to the election, Trump’s views on science, health and medicine appear unformed at best, ignorant and destructive at worst. To get an idea of what top minds in science, health and research are thinking, we reached out to Scientific American’s Board of Advisers to get their quick-fire reactions to the election outcome....

The US Supreme Court has reinstated a limited version of President Donald Trump’s temporary order banning travelers from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The court will hear a legal challenge to the ban in October. The court’s decision, announced on June 26, casts doubt on the fate of students and scientists from these countries who hope to study or work in the United States. It bars citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from traveling to the United States unless they have a “bona fide” connection with a person or entity in the country....

Anyone who has pulled an all-nighter knows it is possible to be tired without being sleepy. The body slows and concentration slips, even as thoughts spin toward a manic blur. It feels as though the sleep-deprived brain is actually becoming more active. And indeed it is, according to a recent study in the journal Cerebral Cortex. Marcello Massimini, a neurophysiologist at the University of Milan in Italy, found that the brain becomes more sensitive as the day wears on....

In the early 1970s Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado, a professor of physiology at Yale University, was among the world’s most acclaimed–and controversial–neuroscientists. In 1970 the New York Times Magazine hailed him in a cover story as the “impassioned prophet of a new ‘psychocivilized society’ whose members would influence and alter their own mental functions.” The article added, though, that some of Delgado’s Yale colleagues saw “frightening potentials” in his work....

The Arctic Council added China and five other countries as official observers yesterday, expanding the focus of the organization and underscoring the complicated politics created by newly open waters in the north because of climate change. The council – which consists of eight Arctic countries – granted observer status to India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore in addition to China. The group deferred a final decision about an observer application from the European Union, although it welcomed the union’s request “affirmatively....

Chocolate may be the most sought-after treat among trick-or-treaters on Halloween, with little hands grasping for all of the milk- and dark-chocolate morsels they can collect, but the details of its taste and aroma profiles have long eluded scientists. And new science is revealing why cocoa’s potent sensual properties have been so difficult to pin down. A recent analysis found that the individual aroma molecules in roasted cacao beans (the primary ingredient of chocolate) can smell of everything from cooked cabbage to human sweat to raw beef fat....

By Alla Katsnelson Tumors don’t just rely on their host’s blood vessels for nourishment–they can make their own vasculature, according to two independent studies from the United States and Italy. The findings offer an explanation for why a class of drug once heralded as a game-changer in cancer treatment is proving less effective than had been hoped. Almost four decades ago, Judah Folkman, a cell biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass....

The World Health Organization said June 25 that monkeypox wasn’t yet a public health emergency of international concern. More than 4,500 cases have been reported worldwide, with more than 300 in the U.S. And with public health officials unable to follow all chains of transmission, they’re likely undercounting cases. Everyone should be aware of its symptoms, how it spreads, and the risks of it getting worse. Q: Should I be worried about monkeypox?...

Natalia Dudareva, an associate professor in the department of horticulture and landscape architecture at Purdue University, explains. Flowers of many plant species produce a scent. This scent is typically a complex mixture of low molecular weight compounds emitted by flowers into the atmosphere and its structure, color and odor are critical factors in attracting pollinators. Although flowers can be identical in their color or shape, there are no two floral scents that are exactly the same because of the large diversity of volatile compounds and their relative abundances and interactions....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Hymn to Inanna (also known as The Great-Hearted Mistress) is a passionate devotional work by the poet and high priestess Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE), the first author in the world known by name. The poem is significant as one of the oldest works of literature extant and for its content elevating the goddess Inanna above all others....