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NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft should be able to achieve its primary mission goal regardless of whether or not it can bounce back from a recent malfunction, researchers say. Kepler launched in March 2009 on a 3.5-year prime mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are throughout the Milky Way galaxy. That goal is likely already attainable, even if the spacecraft is unable to recover from the glitch that halted its exoplanet hunt two months ago, mission team members say....

Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto designated an ocean region near the southwestern coast of Mexico as a protected area. Uniquely rich in marine biodiversity, the area is North America’s largest marine reserve, at nearly 58,000 square miles (150,000 square kilometers). On Friday (Nov. 24), President Nieto signed a decree to create the Revillagigedo Archipelago National Park in a region of the Pacific Ocean that surrounds four volcanic islands: Claríon, Roca Partida, Socorro and San Benedicto....

What defines a ‘new form’ of a substance? The question is provoked by a study showing the familiar, bent water molecule with its protons delocalised over no fewer than six equivalent positions around a ring, averaging away its dipole moment. Alexander Kolesnikov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and colleagues call this a ‘new form of water’. It sounds almost unbelievably odd. But the basic phenomenon reported by Kolesnikov and colleagues has in fact been recognised for decades....

By Barbara LewisBRUSSELS (Reuters) - More than 50 top European and U.S. scientists have written to the European Commission president urging him to press ahead with a plan to label tar sands as more polluting than other forms of oil, in defiance of intensive lobbying from Canada.The draft law was kept on ice during trade talks between the European Union and Canada, the world’s biggest producer of oil from tar sands, which culminated in a multi-million-dollar pact signed earlier this year....

Researchers say they have come up with a new concept for a two-dimensional cloak of invisibility that would be much easier to make than the three-dimensional version demonstrated last year in rudimentary form. This, however, is not the kind of cloaking device the military might be interested in: When viewed under red light, it would make a lump in an otherwise flat surface appear smooth and shiny like the image in a mirage....

In 1865 Friedrich August Kekul woke up from a strange dream: he imagined a snake forming a circle and biting its own tail. Like many organic chemists of the time, Kekul had been working feverishly to describe the true chemical structure of benzene, a problem that continually eluded understanding. But Kekul’s dream of a snake swallowing its tail, so the story goes, helped him to accurately realize that benzene’s structure formed a ring....

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a pre-flown first stage successfully delivered to orbit today (Feb. 22) the first two prototypes for the company’s huge Starlink satellite-internet constellation, along with a Spanish Earth-observing spacecraft. The two-stage Falcon 9 lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base today at 9:17 a.m. EST (1417 GMT; 6:17 a.m. local California time) and successfully delivered its main payload, the Paz radar-imaging satellite, into its intended orbit....

Embryonic stem cells can become any other cell in the body, a capability researchers hope one day to direct toward healing organs ravaged by disease. In the U.S., President George W. Bush restricted federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research in 2001, with just $24.8 million doled out in 2004. But in a dramatic rejection of Bush’s policy, the state of California in the past year became the world’s largest single backer of stem cell research, a move spearheaded by Palo Alto, Calif....

To make healthy sperm, mice must have genes that are well known for a completely different purpose: enabling the sense of taste. It’s not as surprising as you might think. Over the past decade biologists have found taste and smell receptors—initially thought to be confined to the mouth and nose—in the brain, the gut, the kidneys and elsewhere throughout the body. What they are doing in all these places is still something of a puzzle, as the sperm study, published in July in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, shows....

After 20 years of stagnaion, nuclear energy again finds favor in the eyes of many energy planners. In contrast with electricity generated from coal or natural gas, nuclear power contributes little to greenhouse gas emissions and could therefore help in the effort to reduce global warming. The establishment of a tax on carbon emissions, which has been widely proposed as an incentive to move away from fossil-fuel use, would make nuclear energy even more attractive....

The top performers in their fields—from LeBron James to Oprah Winfrey to Bill Gates—seem to have it all. Through a combination of talent, drive, and hard work, they lead their organizations to the next level. In fact, according to a recent estimate, top performers produce 20 to 30 times more than the average employee in their fields. Many of us aspire to reap the accolades, respect, and influence that come with being one of the very best....

For those who have spent months indoors during the pandemic, walks in the woods have been a rare source of relief. This artful book is a captivating tribute to all forests that, even if we can’t travel to them, soothe the mind. Author Blackwell goes well beyond the standard coffee-table book fare and explores the value of forests as ecosystems, the products that they provide, and their symbolic role in pop culture and human emotional well-being....

In November 2013 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made the welcome, belated determination that partially hydrogenated oils—the primary source of trans fats—could no longer be “generally regarded as safe.” At press time, the ruling is preliminary but expected to become permanent. If it does, it will virtually eliminate industrially produced trans fats in the U.S, saving thousands of lives every year, with minimal cost to industry. In 1901 German chemist Wilhelm Normann discovered the process of partial hydrogenation, which converts inexpensive liquid vegetable oils into shortenings and margarines and creates trans fats as a by-product....

Name: Robin Nagle Title: Anthropologist-in-Residence, New York City Department of Sanitation Location: New York City How did you get interested in trash? When I was a child, my dad and I went hiking in the Adirondack Mountains, and we spent hours in a forest that seemed like we were the first human beings to ever walk in. And then we arrived at our campsite; behind the lean-to there was a dump left by hikers who had come before....

North Korea’s latest underground nuclear weapons test Tuesday sends several messages to the international community, most of them unwelcome. For starters, this was the country’s third nuclear weapons demonstration and the first since Kim Jong-un took over in December 2011, indicating that Kim Jong-il’s successor has adopted his father’s confrontational approach to foreign relations. In addition, the detonation—about 380 kilometers northeast of Pyongyang—touched off a seismic event measuring between magnitude 4....

On May 4, 2017 the U.S. House of Representatives passed (with a 217 versus 213 vote) the revised American Health Care Act (AHCA), aka “Trumpcare,” in hopes of repealing and replacing Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). If you are interested in the nitty gritty details of the new bill, here is the official link. The greatest controversial concern of the new bill is the potential loss of protection against pre-existing conditions, one of the pillars of the ACA....

If a past ordeal continues to trouble you, try writing about it as if it happened to somebody else: “She crashed the car,” rather than “I crashed the car.” In a study that appeared in February in Stress and Health, doing so led to greater health gains for participants who struggled with trauma-related intrusive thinking, as measured by the number of days their normal activities were restricted by any kind of illness....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Although ancient Greek Society was dominated by the male citizen, with his full legal status, right to vote, hold public office, and own property, the social groups which made up the population of a typical Greek city-state or polis were remarkably diverse. Women, children, immigrants (both Greek and foreign), labourers, and slaves all had defined roles, but there was interaction (often illicit) between the classes and there was also some movement between social groups, particularly for second-generation offspring and during times of stress such as wars....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world that is still practiced today. Included in the original athletic contests of the Olympic Games, pugilism or boxing was well known and loved by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The style used in the Roman Empire was heavily influenced by their predecessors, the Greeks, and Etruscans....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. After the Roman emperor Claudius (r. 41-54 CE) successfully conquered Britain in 43 CE, four legions were left there to maintain the peace: XIV Gemina, II Augusta, IX Hispana, and XX Valeria Victrix. However, by the end of the decade, XIV Gemina was replaced by II Adiutrix....