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With the elderly segment of populations ballooning worldwide, the race to defeat that grim corollary of aging, Alzheimer’s disease, is becoming all the more urgent. This year saw several encouraging advances on that front. In what reviewers described as a “technological tour de force,” John R. Cirrito and David M. Holtzman of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis traced production of a destructive Alzheimer’s protein, known as amyloid-beta (right), to the junctions between neurons called synapses....

America’s utilities are getting ambitious about carbon reduction. But some climate analysts are skeptical about whether power companies will follow through and meet their aggressive emission targets. Just this month, Duke Energy Corp., American Electric Power and NRG Energy Inc. announced plans to further cut their emissions. They are not alone. Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit, recently reported 22 power companies have pledged to lower their carbon footprints since 2018. The newest announcements are notable on several fronts....

Although our brain accounts for just 2 percent of our body weight, the organ consumes half of our daily carbohydrate requirements—and glucose is its most important fuel. Under acute stress the brain requires some 12 percent more energy, leading many to reach for sugary snacks. Carbohydrates provide the body with the quickest source of energy. In fact, in cognitive tests subjects who were stressed performed poorly prior to eating. Their performance, however, went back to normal after consuming food....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Polybius’ Capture of Achaeus and Fall of Sardis is the account of the end of the Siege of Sardis (215-213 BCE) by Antiochus III (aka Antiochus the Great, r. 223-187 BCE) of the Seleucid Empire after the betrayal and capture of his cousin Achaeus (d. 213 BCE) who had proclaimed himself king....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The two sieges of Cusco in 1536-7 were the last great military actions by the Incas as they tried to reclaim their empire from the Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro (c. 1478-1541). The European cavalry proved all but invincible, and the city held out until reinforcements arrived from across the Americas....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Dion is located at the foot of Mount Olympus in the north of Greece, in what would have been ancient Macedon. It takes its name from the most important Macedonian sanctuary dedicated to Zeus (“Dios” meaning “of Zeus”). Legend claims this is the site where Orpheus died and was buried....

How do fast breeder reactors differ from regular nuclear power plants? P. Andrew Karam, a senior health physicist with MJW Corporation in Amherst, N.Y., explains: In addition to generating power, as regular nuclear plants do, fast breeder reactors utilize so-called fast neutrons to produce up to 30 percent more fuel than they consume. Nuclear reactors generate energy through fission, the process by which an atomic nucleus splits into two or more smaller nuclei....

UNITED NATIONS — Beijing’s $17 billion effort to support environmental enhancements and green projects around the 2008 Olympic Games met or exceeded almost all of its goals and made an impression on city officials and residents that is likely to last for years, the United Nations said in an assessment released today. The U.N. review of China’s efforts — issued at the 25th annual governing council of the U.N. Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya — concludes that Beijing succeeded in cleaning its notorious air pollution far beyond what most observers expected....

Lock In by John Scalzi Tor, Scientific American and Tor are Affiliates, 2014 (($24.99)) In this near-future murder mystery, a virus has swept the world, causing some who are infected to be “locked in” to their bodies—unable to talk, move or respond to stimuli but nonetheless aware. Technology that is developed in response to the crisis allows the afflicted to mentally inhabit robotic bodies, leaving their paralyzed human shells behind. The technology grants those locked in special powers, such as the ability to move instantly from a robotic body in one location to another far away, as well as to participate in a rich virtual-reality environment created just for them....

When Ida Washington received a letter inviting her to participate in a women’s health study to explore the environmental roots of breast cancer, she didn’t think twice. Her mother was diagnosed with the disease nearly 40 years ago, and since then, it has been a terrifying mystery she has yearned to unravel. Washington was just a teenager when the lump was found on her mother’s left breast. In the years that followed, as her mother’s cancer went into remission, she began to wonder what caused it....

The massive magnitude 8.9 earthquake that struck near the east coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, at 2:46 P.M. local time and unleashed a fierce tsunami claiming hundreds of lives is already being felt as far away as the west coast of North America, about 8,000 kilometers away. Much of this has to do with the depth of the ocean that the tsunamis waves traversed as well as the sheer size of the quake, which was the strongest recorded in Japan’s history....

To get an inkling of what a well-designed hospital garden can mean to a seriously ill child, watch the home video posted on YouTube last August of Aidan Schwalbe, a three-year-old heart-transplant recipient. The toddler is shown exploring the meandering paths, sun-dappled lawn and gnarled roots of a branching shade tree in the Prouty Garden at Children’s Hospital Boston. “He loves to be out in the garden feeding the birds and squirrels,” wrote Aidan’s grandmother in an August blog entry....

Women with mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are at increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer, but a woman’s exact cancer risk may vary greatly depending on exactly how her gene is mutated, or changed from its original form. A new study identifies a number of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that may help doctors provide women with more precise estimates of their cancer risk. “We have women who are 70 and 80 years old who have BRCA1 [or] BRCA2 mutations and have never developed cancer of any kind,” said study researcher Timothy Rebbeck, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine....

“The outermost planet of the solar system has a mass 10 times smaller than hitherto supposed, according to measurements made by Gerard P. Kuiper of Yerkes Observatory, using the 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain. On the basis of deviations in the path of the planet Neptune, supposedly caused by Pluto’s gravitational attraction, it used to be estimated that Pluto’s mass was approximately that of the earth. Kuiper was the first human being to see the planet as anything more than a pinpoint of light....

Thanks to an unusual opportunity to implant electrodes into the brains of alert adults, researchers have described the sequence and timing of distinct steps in language processing to a finer degree than previous methods have allowed. The brain’s language center, named Broca’s area after the French physician Pierre Paul Broca who discovered it in 1865, has remained a relative black box since its recognition. Unlike other brain-based functions, such as movement or vision, there are no animal models for language study—formal language being a uniquely human skill....

A freshly baked roll is as delightful as a soft, fluffy cloud on a summer’s day. What gives bread much of its appealing texture is gluten, a group of proteins found in wheat, rye and barley. But in people with a serious autoimmune disorder called celiac disease, gluten damages the small intestine. Many others may have milder gluten intolerance and avoid foods that contain it. Most gluten-free bread is made from alternative flours such as rice or potato, so it tastes and feels different from wheat bread....

When Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, he pondered the evolution of organisms ranging from orchids to whales. Conspicuously missing from his magnum opus, however, was any substantive discussion of how humans might have arisen. He wrote only “light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” Scholars attribute Darwin’s relative silence on this matter to reluctance on his part to further nettle the Victorian establishment (and his pious wife), for whom the origin of all living things—especially humans—was God’s work....

One of the greatest public health fears is an influenza pandemic. Epidemiologists have worried that the avian flu virus, formally known as H5N1, could mutate enough to sicken and pass among humans, who would not have an immunity to it. A universal flu vaccine would prevent such a threat: like some childhood shots, it would confer lifelong protection—and eliminate seasonal flu injections as well. For the Insights story, “Beating the Flu in a Single Shot,“appearing in the June 2008 Scientific American, Alexander Hellemans talked with Walter Fiers of Ghent University in Belgium....

The moon, a luminous disk in the inky sky, appears suddenly above the broad crescent of Earth’s horizon. The four astronauts in the Orion crew exploration vehicle have witnessed several such spectacular moonrises since their spacecraft reached orbit some 300 kilometers above the vast expanse of our home planet. But now, with a well-timed rocket boost, the pilot is ready to accelerate their vessel toward the distant target ahead. “Translunar injection burn in 10 seconds … ” comes the call over the headset....

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Food Programme will help to feed nearly 6.5 million Ethiopians this year, the U.N. agency said on Tuesday, with the country hit by locusts, neighboring war and sparse rainfall. “We are concerned because there is the beginning of a locust invasion in the eastern part of the country, and if it’s not properly handled it could be of concern for the pastoralist population living there,” WFP spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs told a U....