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Yeast, worms and mice: all have lived longer when treated with various chemical compounds in laboratory tests. But many promising leads have failed when tried in humans. This week, researchers are proposing a different approach to animal testing of life-extending drugs: trials in pet dogs. Their target is rapamycin, which is used clinically as part of an anti-rejection drug cocktail after kidney transplants and which has also been shown to extend the lives of mice by 13% in females and 9% in males (D....

SeaWorld announced today that the theme park chain is ending its killer whale breeding program. The decision comes after ongoing criticism from animal rights activists and the increasing public disapproval of its treatment of the orcas. The park’s current batch of 29 killer whales will be the last kept in captivity. Although SeaWorld has been under fire for decades since the Humane Society of the United States launched a campaign to end captive marine mammal shows, criticism of the park reached a peak with the 2013 documentary Blackfish, which focused on the park’s mistreatment of the orcas and the threats the marine mammals posed to their trainers....

Does a widespread medical emergency justify speedier, and sometimes less rigorous, ways to test treatments and evaluate results? Doctors and patients urgently need to get their hands on drugs for the COVID-19 pandemic. But bioethicists Jonathan Kimmelman of McGill University and Alex John London of Carnegie Mellon University argue in an April 23 Science article that hurried trials and tests can do more harm than good. They highlight hastily published case reports that, they contend, can lead doctors to believe some drugs offer more of a benefit than has been proved....

Dear EarthTalk: When the plug-in Prius is released, how much electricity will it use? Will my electric bill double if my Prius is plugged in each night? Or will the increase be minimal? Also, will all this recharging put a strain on the existing electricity grid? —G. C. Marx, Colorado Springs, Colo. It is difficult to pinpoint the answer to this question right now since Toyota has not yet released its much anticipated plug-in hybrid, but most analysts believe the increase in your electric bill from overnight charging will be minimal....

Every effort must be made to reduce emissions and increase removals of atmospheric carbon in order to restore the melting Arctic and end the deadly cycle of damage that the current climate is delivering. Scientists now find that catastrophic climate change could render a significant portion of the Earth uninhabitable consequent to continued high emissions, self-reinforcing climate feedback loops and looming tipping points. To date, 1,859 jurisdictions in 33 countries have issued climate emergency declarations covering more than 820 million people....

ONE DAY SOON, as you stand in front of the bathroom mirror brushing your teeth, you may see, alongside the morning headlines, a scoreboard that ranks your household’s current carbon footprint versus your neighbors’. Your electric toothbrush will beep to notify you that dutiful brushing twice a day every day for the past six months has earned you enough points for a 10 percent discount on your next checkup. You take a shower (a brief one, so as not to jeopardize your family’s enviable energy-consumption score and the tax benefits it confers), get dressed and log in at your home-office computer for the morning meeting....

Dear EarthTalk: Where do I recycle old ski boots (hard plastic)? My recycling center does not take hard plastic. —Beth Fitzpatrick, Stamford, Conn. Americans recycle more plastic than ever these days, but there are still plenty of items that are not accepted by municipalities, including many hard plastic items like ski boots. If such items are still usable, consider donating them to a local Goodwill or Salvation Army store, which can sell them and put the money earned toward housing and feeding those less fortunate....

Key concepts Physics Motion Gravity Resistance Angles Introduction Have you ever seen a long, game-winning pass in a football game, a baseball player throw in a ball from way out in the outfield or a soccer goalie punt a ball all the way down the field? All of these actions involve a player trying to throw or kick a ball as far as possible. There is some science behind these throws and kicks....

The past often points the way forward, even in technology. In Scientific American’s November Advances Clay Dillow documents the return of the turboprop airplane in response to demands for regional flights and better fuel efficiency. As a result, new blade designs and layouts are on the way. But some windows into the past can disappear forever: Climatologists are scrambling to excavate melting cave ice that holds clues about ancient Earth’s climate....

Artificial bone seemed to be a settled issue in academia; there was a sense that nothing was left to be invented. But then Northwestern University materials scientists began talking to surgeons. Over the course of 100 interviews they realized that far from being satisfied with the available options, surgeons wanted much more. Bone graft material, the surgeons complained, was too brittle. It could not be squeezed into tight spaces to allow for minimally invasive surgeries and it did not integrate well with existing tissue, sometimes creating problems with growth and healing....

Editor’s Note: This story from Climatewire is informed, in part, by a press release that was subsequently retracted by the online news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The study itself has not been retracted. It presents an aggressive scenario for future warming under climate change that many climate scientists question. We will publish an Observations blog post later this afternoon to offer more background on the issues surrounding this story....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The toga was a garment worn by men who were citizens of Rome which consisted of a single length of wool cloth cut in a semicircle and wrapped around the body of the wearer without any fastenings. The Roman toga was a clearly identifiable status symbol. While most togas were white, some, indicative of a person’s rank or specific role in the community, were coloured or included a stripe, notably the purple one which indicated the wearer was a member of the Roman Senate....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Julio-Claudian Dynasty Augustus as Pontifex Maximus (Detail)Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA) Augustus 16 Jan 27 BCE - 19 Aug 14 CE Tiberius, Ny Carlsberg GlyptotekCnyborg (CC BY-SA) Tiberius 18 Sep 14 CE - 16 Mar 37 CE Caligula, Ny Carlsberg GlypotekCarole Raddato (CC BY-SA) Caligula 18 Mar 37 CE - 24 Jan 41 CE...

MARCH 1959 DARWIN’S MISSING EVIDENCE “Less than a century ago moths of certain species were characterized by their light coloration, which matched such backgrounds as light tree trunks and lichen-covered rocks, on which the moths passed the daylight hours sitting motionless. Today in many areas the same species are predominantly dark! Ever since the Industrial Revolution commenced in the latter half of the 18th century, large areas of the earth’s surface have been contaminated by an insidious and largely unrecognized fallout of smoke particles....

Untruths come in many shapes and sizes. All are antithetical to science, but the most flagrant variety—gaslighting, in which someone denies the reality that other people are experiencing—has become a greater threat than ever. Throughout a year of tragedy and strife, including the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, we’ve seen leaders and other public figures force people to doubt their experiences and thoughts. These manipulators don’t just ignore data and evidence; they deny their very existence....

At the spinning heart of the modern electric grid lies what used to be called the dynamo—a generator composed of stacks of copper rotating in an electromagnetic field. But it’s a turbine that spins the dynamo—and efforts to squeeze more efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution from a smart grid may rest on improving this core technology. “The best emissions are emissions you don’t make in the first place,” notes Charles Soothill, senior vice president for technology at Alstom Power, a maker of turbines....

General consensus among Alzheimer’s researchers has it that the disease’s main culprit, a protein called amyloid beta, is an unfortunate waste product that is not known to play any useful role in the body—and one that can have devastating consequences. When not properly cleared from the brain it builds up into plaques that destroy synapses, the junctions between nerve cells, resulting in cognitive decline and memory loss. The protein has thus become a major drug target in the search for a cure to Alzheimer’s....

The death of Osama bin Laden elicited many different types of responses and feelings—triumph, sorrow and anger among them. Each of us, as individuals, is capable of having conflicting feelings about the death of the al Qaeda leader, depending on how we happen to see ourselves at any given moment—as parents, spouses, workers, Americans, and so forth. The variety of our responses reveals the subtle and powerful forces surrounding social identity: how we relate to different groups and roles, which is changeable and influenced by circumstances....

The bacteria responsible for most cases of food poisoning in the U.S. has been turned into an efficient biological factory to make chemicals, medicines and, now, fuels. Chemical engineer Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have manipulated the genetic code of Escherichia coli, a common gut bacteria, so that it can chew up plant-derived sugar to produce diesel and other hydrocarbons, according to results published in the January 28 issue of Nature....

Since the 1985 discovery of buckyballs (such as the buckminsterfullerene—a nanoscopic sphere of 60 carbon atoms connected in a pattern similar to a traditional soccer ball), researchers have focused intense attention on various chicken-wire-like carbon structures. The latest addition to the menagerie is graphene, a flat single layer of carbon atoms bonded together in the hexagonal pattern of graphite. In November 2005 two independent research groups, one led by Andre K....