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Not far from the famously multihued architecture of Bilbao in northern Spain, an underground world boasts its own vibrant display of color. The stalagmites and stalactites of Goikoetxe Cave are not just the usual white; many range from honey to deep red. New research shows that these formations, known generally as speleothems, get their red color from organic compounds leached from soil and transported by water. Scientists suggest, in an article published online in April in Quaternary International, that Goikoetxe Cave’s speleothems record environmental conditions such as rainfall....

The renewable energy revolution President Obama wants to jump-start with stimulus money might be coming. But it’s going to take a while. While Congress and Obama moved quickly to pass the stimulus legislation, corporate planning for the future is more measured. Any increase in green energy must overcome business and regulatory obstacles. And businesses dominating the renewable energy arena are based outside the United States. Those companies will need to add or expand U....

Patagonia, dreamland for fossil hunters of enormous and ferocious dinosaurs, has yielded one of its most delicate and surprising paleontological fruits. Scientists have found the fossilized remains of tomatillos—popularly known as the central ingredient in salsa verde. The discovery represents the oldest evidence of plants within the genus Physalis, which are part of the Solanaceae family, or nightshades, a plant group that boasts among its members potatoes, tomatoes, chilies and tobacco....

At least 16 U.S. states have passed bills banning critical race theory from school curriculums, in some cases prohibiting the teaching of terms such as “racial prejudice,” “patriarchy” and “structural inequality.” These restrictions use critical race theory as a scare tactic, even though the actual research examines only how race and law interact, not all concepts of race and society. At the least, these bills misrepresent actual findings. At worst, they are a disinformation campaign....

Every night at sundown, a great mass of mostly small sea creatures rises up from the depths into the topmost layers of the planet’s oceans. This daily vertical migration is the largest on Earth—an estimated 11 billion tons of animal biomass travels miles upward each night and then, before the sun rises, returns back to the dimly lit “twilight zone” below. The animals make this journey to feed on the organic material closer to the water’s surface and do so at night to avoid being eaten by the larger predators swimming there....

In the U.S., more than 40 percent of 40-year-olds need eyeglasses for reading, and that figure jumps to nearly 70 percent for people aged 80 and older. “As we get older, refractive errors play more significant roles in our lives,” says Gordon Wetzstein, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University. But glasses and contact lenses are not always ideal. If you are farsighted, for example, you do not need glasses to see traffic while driving, but you do need them to read your speedometer or GPS....

The sun blasts Earth with enough energy in one hour—4.3 x 1020 joules—to provide all of humanity’s energy needs for a year (4.1 x 1020 joules), according to physicist Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The question is how to most effectively harness it. Thin-film solar cells may be the answer: One recently converted 19.9 percent of the sunlight that hit it into electricity, surpassing the amount converted into power by mass-produced traditional silicon photovoltaics and offering the potential to unleash this renewable energy source....

When he took office in 2009, US President Barack Obama bolstered efforts to secure nuclear materials around the globe. That spring, speaking in Prague, he said that he would push Congress to ratify a long-pending treaty to ban nuclear testing. By 2010, he had reached an agreement with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in both countries’ arsenals to historic lows. Yet the weapons laboratories of the US Department of Energy continue to be lavished with money....

Ebola’s exponential spread has rekindled fears that terrorists may seek to turn the virus into a powerful weapon of mass destruction. Such talk has occurred on Capitol Hill and in national security circles. But the financial and logistical challenges of transforming Ebola into a tool of bioterror makes the concern seem overblown—at least as far as widespread devastation is concerned. National security and infectious disease experts agree the obstacles to a large-scale assault with Ebola are formidable....

The established tendency to see water everywhere as an endless resource is being increasingly challenged in many parts of the world, including here in the UK. For too long, water has been taken for granted and UK businesses rarely debate the consequences of water mismanagement at the regional and national levels. Climate change is having impacts not only on the hydrological cycle, resulting in increased droughts and floods1, but also on vital water resources and ecosystem services2, such as the ability to regulate water quality through sedimentation3....

If Homo sapiens can stick it out on Earth for another two billion years, our descendants may witness quite a show in the night sky. Researchers estimate that the Milky Way will collide with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, at around that time—well before the sun collapses into a white dwarf, perhaps destroying the Earth in the process. This close encounter of the galactic kind could easily kick our solar system to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and there is a small chance we might even take up residence in Andromeda, according to astronomers T....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. County Clare, Ireland, is best known for the Cliffs of Moher, the ancient dolmen of Poulnabrone, and its rich musical heritage, but it offers many other fascinating sites and, most importantly, the hospitality and warmth of the people in the villages. My wife Betsy and I traveled across the country one January from Shannon on up, down, and across to Dublin, seeing many memorable sites and having the pleasure of meeting many warm and welcoming people....

Medical devices sustain and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans. But as the over $100 billion-a-year industry pushes thousands of devices to market every year, reports of faulty devices, repeat surgeries, and recalls have increased. The FDA and the industry maintain that a speedy approval process gives patients faster access to life-saving devices. But critics say that unlike drugs, a substantial number of risky devices are cleared without clinical testing, and receive almost no oversight once on the market....

• Rural is restorative. In one study, people generally rated rural settings as providing the best environment for relieving stress and enhancing mood. • A weekend is long enough. The aftereffects may not last long, but research shows that an impromptu short vacation can improve psychological well-being in the moment. • Activity is encouraged. People who spent more time engaging in physical activity on a winter vacation or weekend getaway reported significantly greater satisfaction....

It reads like the guest list for one of the most interesting dinner parties ever: Miles Davis, Aristotle, Darlene Love, Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, Ben and Jerry. And those are just some of the people who appear in The Formula, a new book about the “laws of success,” by network scientist Albert-László Barabási. “You’ve got to have fun when you write a book, and you also aim for diversity,” says Barabási, director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University, explaining one reason for that eclectic lineup....

The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation by Adam Steltzner, with William Patrick Portfolio, 2016 ($28) Less than a week before NASA’s Curiosity rover was to land on Mars, an engineer on the team planning its touchdown found a problem: the three coordinates that determined the vehicle’s “center of navigation” in its onboard computer were off. The team members faced a daunting decision: live with the minor error, which might have no effect on the landing, or update the coordinates and risk setting off other problems by making such a significant change so late in the game....

As BP’s initial efforts to stem the flow of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico at its Deepwater Horizon drilling site have fallen by the wayside, the company said Monday it is implementing a plan in the next two weeks to permanently plug the leaking well. If successful, this so-called “junk shot” option—which involves clogging the well’s failed blowout preventer with a variety of objects, including golf balls, tires and tennis balls—will be covered with a layer of cement that ensures the well is never used again....

By Hannah Hoag of Nature magazineAn unusual ‘help wanted’ advertisement arrived in the inboxes of Canadian scientists last week. The e-mail asked the research community to provide new homes for an impressive archive of ice cores representing 40 years of research by government scientists in the Canadian Arctic.The note was sent out by Christian Zdanowicz, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in Ottawa. He said that the collection faced destruction owing to budget cuts at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the government department that runs the survey, and a “radical downsizing” of the Ice Core Research Laboratory....

After decades of studying dark matter scientists have repeatedly found evidence of what it cannot be but very few signs of what it is. That might have just changed. A study of four colliding galaxies for the first time suggests that the dark matter in them may be interacting with itself through some unknown force other than gravity that has no effect on ordinary matter. The finding could be a significant clue as to what comprises the invisible stuff that is thought to contribute 24 percent of the universe....

The standard 35 mm film we’re all used to seeing in movie theaters will be replaced worldwide by digital technology in the next few years, and the hit blockbuster film “Avatar” is to blame for the shift, according to a new report. A report from the IHS Screen Digest Cinema Intelligence Service said that 35 mm film, which has been the dominant projection format in movie theaters for more than 120 years, is nearing the end of its life, as the majority of cinema screens in the U....