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A few more sweeps with the whisk broom, and the bone at my knees suddenly came into focus. I was looking at the snout of a Pachyrhinosaurus, a particularly odd horned dinosaur, a rare relative of Triceratops. It was not the first, or even the second, fossil of this creature found in Alaska, but I could already see parts of this skull that were not preserved on the other specimens. Continued excavation at the site—with picks and shovels supplementing our whisk brooms—yielded the bones and teeth of at least three other dinosaur species....

When Stephanie,* a 34-year-old middle manager from the Midwest, began to overeat, it was not typical behavior for her. She had never before had trouble with her weight. But in 2009 she started to feel an overwhelming hunger—particularly for sugar—and was soon rapidly piling on pounds. Then just as abruptly, Stephanie developed an obsession with gambling. She would play games of chance online. “I’d never bought a lottery ticket in my life,” she recalls....

U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson rebuffed recent efforts to prevent her agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions yesterday, stating that the evidence proving climate change is a problem remains “robust, voluminous and compelling.” Jackson rejected 10 petitions filed by the attorneys general of Texas and Virginia, the Ohio Coal Association and other groups that urged her to nullify the “endangerment” finding – the EPA ruling that stated greenhouse gases pose a direct threat to human health and welfare....

Key concepts Biology Muscles Movement Nervous system Introduction Have you ever wondered how a decision to move your arm can make your arm move? When your brain creates a command to move your arm nerves pass along the command and muscles in the arm contract as ordered. These muscle contractions make your arm move. But could your arm move without a command from the brain? This activity is a fun and surprising way to find out!...

For materials-science fans, graphene is one of those substances that’s easy to get excited about. Not only is graphene transparent and superstrong—a sheet with the thickness of Saran Wrap could support an elephant—but it also conducts electricity very quickly. It could lead to computer circuits that run 100 times faster. Ainissa Ramirez, a Yale University professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, explains the basics of graphene and demonstrates its electrical property with pencil marks on paper....

Wouldn’t it be nice to be an electron? Then you, too, could take advantage of the marvels of quantum mechanics, such as being in two places at once—very handy for juggling the competing demands of modern life. Alas, physicists have long spoiled the fantasy by saying that quantum mechanics applies only to microscopic things. Yet that is a myth. In the modern view that has gained traction in the past decade, you don’t see quantum effects in everyday life not because you are big, per se, but because those effects are camouflaged by their own sheer complexity....

Cane toads are seemingly innocuous enough. First imported to Australia to control a beetle pest of sugarcane fields, they are now frog-marching their way across the island continent, wreaking havoc on in situ flora and fauna. The key to their domination has been protection from would-be predators and an ability to breed fast. But how were cane toads gifted with those traits in the first place? A new study published February 5 in Science aims to answer that question....

In 1989, Stanley Crooke, MD, PhD, took a chance on a little-known technology called antisense—a new way to find and validate drug targets by enhancing the human immune response and preventing production of proteins known to cause disease. As a physician and pharmacologist, Dr. Crooke recognized its potential to bring relief to patients with few options, and built a company, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, to do just that. After 30 years, Dr. Crooke’s bet has paid off, with two recently approved first-in-class drugs and an advanced antisense technology platform that promises to boost the efficacy, safety and scope of treatments in major areas of medical need....

The energetic molecule perchlorate is rocket fuel and, it turns out, food for an ancient kind of life. A team of Dutch researchers show in the April 5 Science that the earthly archaeon—as the name implies, an old type of microbe distinct from bacteria—can grow quite happily on perchlorate. Archaeoglobus fulgidus (shown at right) takes the perchlorate in, gains energy by transforming it into highly reactive chlorite and moves on. Thriving in volcanic vents underneath the sea as well as other superhot areas of Earth, such as oil reservoirs or places where hot rock turns water to steam, A....

Inside an ultraclean facility in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, engineers are constructing NASA’s next Mars-bound spacecraft. The Mars Atmosphere And Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft is being assembled by Lockheed Martin at their Space Systems Company facilities near Denver. The spacecraft’s core structure and propellant tank were recently installed in a clean room, which protects the various components against contamination. “MAVEN is just starting to come together in the clean room,” James Crocker, Lockheed Martin’s vice president and general manager for sensing and exploration systems, told reporters during a recent site tour here....

Dear EarthTalk: I understand that mountaintop removal as a way of coal mining is incredibly destructive. Didn’t a report come out recently that named major banks that were funding this activity?—Seth Jergens, New York City Yes, it’s true that many major banks invest in companies that engage in the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, whereby the tops of mountains are removed by explosives to expose thin seams of recoverable coal....

Malaria still kills more than a million people a year. Even though low-tech measures such as spraying insecticides and distributing treated bed netting to residents can reduce infection rates, poor countries, where most victims live, cannot afford them. As an alternative strategy, researchers have tried for years to genetically engineer mosquitoes so they will not transmit the disease. Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites that reproduce inside human liver and red blood cells and are passed from person to person by female Anopheles mosquitoes....

It’s that time of year again, when anxious smartphone shoppers flood my inbox with questions about whether they should buy the current iPhone now or wait for the new version. And with good reason. No one wants to be the dupe who buys the older version of a product a week before the latest model is introduced. In this edition of Ask Maggie, I advise a reader who recently lost his iPhone 3GS to the smartphone gods about whether he should buy an iPhone 4S now or wait another three to six months for the new iPhone to be introduced....

At the edge of a sprawling grassland, a pair of hoofed grazers resembling horses, an antelopelike notoungulate and a ground sloth feed quietly, oblivious to their impending doom. Equally unaware are the chinchilla and the tiny, mouselike marsupial nibbling seeds nearby. Suddenly, one of the jagged, snow-covered volcanoes on the horizon explodes catastrophically, sending a flood of muddy ash down its steep slopes. Soon after, this roiling slurry bursts across the flatter lowlands, entombing the unsuspecting animals in its path....

The video is brief, just a couple of minutes, but it’s reality TV as riveting as anything you’ll ever see. A man in his mid-50s, affable, articulate, faces the camera and talks a bit about a medical procedure he’s had. He holds in his hand what looks like a remote control. “I’ll turn myself off now,” he says mildly. The man presses a button on the controller, a beep sounds, and his right arm starts to shake, then to flap violently....

By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - Americans are adding more whole grains, nuts and seeds to their diets and cutting back on sodas and sugary drinks, a U.S. study suggests. While these changes point to some improvements in U.S. eating habits over the past decade, many people still consume too much sugar and processed food and not enough whole fruits and vegetables, the study scheduled for online publication June 21 in JAMA found....

(Reuters) - Torrential rains that drenched much of the U.S. Southwest and killed two women earlier this week caused more than $1 million worth of damage to roadways in a Nevada county, officials said on Thursday. Nearly 140 homes in Clark County suffered damage following Monday’s rains, and preliminary estimates from the county’s public works department put the cost of cleaning and repairing area roadways at around $1.1 million, county spokeswoman Stacey Welling said in a statement....

Private firms may be experiencing a shortage of graduates in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines, but it’s not for a lack of students. For many STEM disciplines, more undergraduate degrees are being awarded now than 10 or 20 years ago. More women are entering college, which in turn is changing the relative popularity of disciplines. Some specific trends worth noting: Women undergraduates, growing in number faster than men, tend to take psychology and biology over physics or math....

Even in the absence of definitive science on the potential hazards surrounding the use of electronic cigarettes, regulations are needed now to head off health concerns. One such restriction should be a ban on indoor use of the devices. That’s according to the World Health Organization in a new report the international body published on August 26. Electronic cigarettes, the organization states, “represent an evolving frontier, filled with promise and threat for tobacco control....

Excerpted with permission from Sex in the Sex: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep, by Marah J. Hardt. Available from St. Martin’s Press. Copyright © 2016. (Scientific American and St. Martin’s Press are part of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.) Admittedly, spontaneous sex on the subway is a bit of a stretch (and probably nauseating for anyone who rides the G train on a regular basis)....