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Gemini and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the moon during the world’s first lunar landing mission, has died at the age of 90. Collins’ death on Wednesday (April 28) was made known by his family and NASA. “We regret to share that our beloved father and grandfather passed away today, after a valiant battle with cancer. He spent his final days peacefully, with his family by his side,” Collins’ family said in a statement....

Large gatherings such as weddings and conferences can be socially overwhelming. Pressure to learn people’s names only adds to the stress. A new facial-recognition app could come to the rescue—but privacy experts recommend proceeding with caution. The app, called SocialRecall, connects names with faces via smartphone cameras and facial recognition, potentially eliminating the need for formal introductions. “It breaks down these social barriers we all have in terms of initiating the protocol to meet somebody,” says Barry Sandrew, whose start-up, also called SocialRecall, created the app and tested it at an event attended by about 1,000 people....

New window screens with pollutant-trapping nanofibers may allow residents of smog-choked cities to breathe easier. The fibers are made of nitrogen-containing polymers and are sprayed onto screens in a technique called blow-spinning, in which a stream of air stretches out droplets of polymer solution in midspray to form an extremely thin layer of nanofibers. Scientists at Stanford University and at Tsinghua University in Beijing recently reported in Nano Letters that they have developed a variety of blow-spun polymers (materials commonly used in rubber gloves and tents) capable of filtering more than 90 percent of the hazardous, lung-penetrating particulate matter that typically passes through standard window screens....

Heat waves and floods caused by climate change could mean disaster for the Big Apple’s five boroughs by the end of the century, with sea levels now predicted by a new report to climb by as much as 6 feet by 2100. According to the New York City Panel on Climate Change, an independent body composed of climate scientists, New York could see a 6-foot increase under a worst-case scenario that has been revised from previous estimates that 2 to 4 feet would be the maximum rise....

Every parent has probably suffered from this type of near catastrophe. My husband and I realized—too late—that we had forgotten to pack toys and books to entertain our older daughter, then about five, during a long drive. Our guilt soon turned to amusement tinged with open admiration. She solved the problem her own way: her feet instantly became two friendly characters cavorting together across her mental stage, with her narrating out loud for our benefit....

The world’s largest, most intractable source of polio may be on the brink of elimination. In India the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have produced more polio cases this decade—nearly 5,000—than any other location worldwide that has an active immunization campaign. Nigeria saw a handful more cases than the two Indian states because it effectively ceased immunizing in 2003 for a time due to false fears of the vaccine. Now, even at the peak of polio season, new cases in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and indeed all of India hover near zero—unprecedented, historic lows....

It’s an uncomfortable thought: Human activity causing the extinction of thousands of species, and the only way to slow or prevent that phenomenon is to have smaller families and forego some of the conveniences of modern life, from eating beef to driving cars, according to Stanford University scientists Paul Ehrlich and Robert Pringle. This extinction—the sixth in the 4-billion-year history of the Earth—“could be much more catastrophic than previous ones,” says Ehrlich, author of the controversial Population Bomb, which predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s....

Feed the World As a retired farmer, I know that the information in “Grassoline at the Pump,” by George W. Huber and Bruce E. Dale, about agricultural residues is false in a most dangerous way. There is NO extra residue from the corn harvest. Sure, you can take it away and use it to create fuel. But that residue is desperately needed right where it fell, to renew the soil. All of it and more are needed to sustain our already low organic matter levels created by years of plowing and other unsustainable agricultural practices....

By Rick LovettThe American West is no longer wild, but lawlessness seems to be rising in the boom towns created as a result of expanding demand for oil and gas, according to a new study.Oil and gas development has long drawn criticism for its environmental effects, which range from road-killed wildlife to unhealthy ozone levels. But a study published in Conservation Biology now shows that it has social effects, too. Focusing on just one aspect of lawlessness – sexual predation – the study has found that twice to three times as many sexual predators are flocking to the boom towns as to nearby tourist, ranching and farming communities....

Ever since the first 60 Starlink satellites were launched in May 2019, 655 more have been placed in orbit, affecting a number of astronomical observations. Each launch has steadily held around 60 satellites, with one or two batches going up each month since January—the last did so on September 3. Finally, in August—after more than a year of complaints from the scientific community and damage-control efforts from SpaceX—the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) released a report on the situation....

What took us so long? Only in 1998 did astronomers discover we had been missing nearly three quarters of the contents of the universe, the so-called dark energy–an unknown form of energy that surrounds each of us, tugging at us ever so slightly, holding the fate of the cosmos in its grip, but to which we are almost totally blind. Some researchers, to be sure, had anticipated that such energy existed, but even they will tell you that its detection ranks among the most revolutionary discoveries in 20th-century cosmology....

On the campaign trail, education often took a backseat to issues like trade and immigration for Donald Trump. He offered few concrete details about his plans, which were often vague and even at odds with what any president has the power to do. Yet the tone of his campaign—and his rhetoric on issues ranging from minorities to climate change—has many educators and academics worried about the future of liberal arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education....

How did dogs come to be our closest animal companions? In the July Scientific American writer Virginia Morell reports on the latest insights into this longstanding mystery from genetics, archaeology and paleontology. It’s a fascinating story, not least because the relationship between humans and dogs has changed over time and from culture to culture: Dogs have functioned variously as hunting partner, guardian, ritual sacrifice and meal. Here Morell describes the relationship between the Kitoi hunter–gatherers of Siberia and their dogs: “Dogs were tablemates with people; they were eating the same things,” says Robert Losey, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton....

Dear EarthTalk: Which parts of the United States are or will be hardest hit by global warming? – Aliza Perry, Burlington, VT It’s difficult to predict which areas of the U.S. will suffer the most from global warming, but it’s safe to say that no regions will be unaffected. Scientists already point to increased severity of hurricanes on the East Coast, major Midwest floods, and shrinking glaciers in the West as proof of global warming’s onset....

A black hole that grew to gargantuan size in the Universe’s first billion years is by far the largest yet spotted from such an early date, researchers have announced. The object, discovered by astronomers in 2013, is 12 billion times as massive as the Sun, and six times greater than its largest-known contemporaries. Its existence poses a challenge for theories of the evolution of black holes, stars and galaxies, astronomers say....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757 saw Robert Clive’s East India Company army defeat a larger force of the Nawab of Bengal. Victory brought the Company new wealth and marked the beginning of its territorial expansion in the subcontinent. Not much more than a skirmish, Plassey has often been cited as the beginning of British rule in India....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Greek poet Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) is most famous for his works Theogony and Works and Days. In this passage from Theogony, Hesiod relates the birth of the gods from cosmic Chaos and follows the lineage through the great Zeus, King of the Olympian gods, worshipped by Hesiod’s contemporaries:...

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Battle of Poitiers aka the Battle of Tours took place over roughly a week in early October of 732. The opposing sides consisted of a Frankish army led by Charles Martel (r. 718-741) against an invading Muslim army under the nominal sovereignty of the Umayyad Caliphate (c....

Humanity’s understanding of its place in the universe began changing in a big way 20 years ago this month. On Oct. 6, 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of Switzerland’s Geneva Observatory announced the discovery of the huge, scorching-hot 51 Pegasi b, the first alien planet ever found around a sunlike star. The first exoplanets of any type were spotted in 1992 by astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail, who found two worlds circling a fast-rotating stellar corpse called a pulsar....

Kim A. Bard, a reader in comparative developmental psychology at the University of Portsmouth, explains. This is an interesting question and one that is very well phrased. Humans are primates and it is important to consider our behaviour within the evolutionary context of other primates. But it is also necessary to define what we mean by crying. If crying is defined as the act of tears coming from the eyes, then simply, the answer is yes: tears appear to be unique to humans among the primates....