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When Catherine Fonesca volunteered as an egg donor, the intake form asked for her SAT scores. It did not ask if she understood the long-term health implications of stimulating her ovaries to produce a bumper crop of eggs to be extracted and turned over to an infertile couple. That wasn’t an oversight by the clinic. No one knows the long-term risks to egg donors—if, in fact, there are any. Anecdotally, some women—Fonesca among them—said they experienced an array of health problems after donations, including ovarian cysts and endometriosis, a painful inflammatory disease that can cause infertility....

For decades, scientists and doctors have dreamed of creating a steady supply of human organs for transplantation by growing them in pigs. But concerns about rejection by the human immune system and infection by viruses embedded in the pig genome have stymied research. Bymodifying more than 60 genes from pig embryos—ten times more than have been edited in any other animal—researchers believe they may have produced a suitable non-human organ donor....

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Lithium spontaneously combusts in air, yet the battery in your computer—and any of the stacks in the new breed of electric vehicles—is made from it. Lithium even burns in water, which is too bad because a lithium-water battery could be both cheap and powerful. Now battery-maker PolyPlus claims to have created such a battery by encasing the lithium in a special membrane that allows it to pass charge without melting down....

By David CyranoskiScientists from Japan’s premier primate research center are struggling to reassure the public that a mysterious illness killing their monkeys poses no threat to humans. Almost a decade after it first appeared, scientists from Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute (PRI) described the disease and their unsuccessful search for a cause in an online publication on July 1 and in a press release on July. 7 But their account leaves other researchers hungry for details....

By Sunita Sah and co-authors* Keith Allen Harward served 33 years in jail after being convicted of rape and murder, largely on the strength of bite-mark evidence. He was subsequently found to be innocent on the basis of DNA and released. When he was incarcerated, the man considered the likely perpetrator remained free. This miscarriage of justice was the result of bad science. Bite-mark evidence has been shown to lack any scientific credibility, yet it continues to be used in court....

Storms are pushing into the southern Appalachians, bringing the potential for large hail and devastating tornadoes. Severe storms hammered an area from Missouri into Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama with dozens of tornadoes and hail to the size of baseballs. Current situation: The threat for damaging winds and tornadoes is diminishing across the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, but the risk remains high farther to the southeast. Stay alert of the dangerous storm situation....

The idea that the adult brain changes with experience was once a radical idea, but it is now well accepted that certain areas—say, the motor cortex, when learning a new physical skill—can grow new neurons or create stronger connections. Now scientists report that the brain is even more mutable than suspected. Thanks to an unconventional research technique, neuroscientists have found the first physical proof that new experiences and information have wide-ranging effects throughout both hemispheres of the brain, rather than just creating connections in one discrete area....

Chartered by the United Nations in 2010, the GCF finances climate-friendly development ventures in the world’s poorest countries. Its 24-member governing board, led by two co-chairs, reviews project proposals and allocates a multibillion-dollar budget that is chiefly bankrolled by wealthy nations. During the 2015 Paris climate negotiations, the fund was deemed crucial for helping developing countries meet their emissions goals. Nicaragua was among the final signatories to the 2015 Paris agreement on climate-control measures....

When doctors want to identify the virus behind an infection, they usually turn to the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a method for “amplifying” scattered bits of DNA into a sample large enough to study. To use PCR, however, a physician must know what kind of virus to look for, and that involves guesswork. This past September a team of Columbia University researchers described a new method that could eliminate that guesswork....

The Harvard–M.I.T. Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) today named Geoffrey von Maltzahn this year’s recipient of the $30,000 Lemelson–M.I.T. Student Prize for developing a technique that utilizes nanosize gold particles to target malignant tumors and kill cancer cells but spares healthy tissue. Established in 1994, the award is given out annually to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior or graduate student who has contributed significantly to the fields of science or technology....

Two researchers at Columbia University in New York say they’ve found a flaw in ordinary office printers that lets hackers hijack the devices to spy on users, spread malware and even force them to overheat to the point of catching fire. “The problem is, technology companies aren’t really looking into this corner of the Internet. But we are,” Salvatore Stolfo, the Columbia professor overlooking the research, said to MSNBC’s Bob Sullivan, who first reported the story....

Experiencing art, whether through melody or oil paint, elicits in us a range of emotions. This speaks to the innate entanglement of art and the brain: Mirror neurons can make people feel like they are physically experiencing a painting. And listening to music can change their brain chemistry. For the past 11 years, the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam has hosted the annual Art of Neuroscience Competition and explored this intersection....

The furls of gas that billow from smokestacks on power plants and other heavy industries are a visible source of the greenhouse gas emissions warming our world. But the economy is filled with invisible releases of carbon dioxide and other climate-change-inducing gases that lurk behind everyday products and services. New research shows that the service sector–such as banking, hospitals, computers and retail stores, among other businesses–is responsible for more than one third of industrial greenhouse gas emissions in the U....

DNA from a mass grave found in Athens in the mid-1990s helped experts identify typhoid fever as a possible source of the plague that killed off one quarter of the city’s population in the fifth century B.C. Now Manolis Papa­grig­or­­ak­is, the University of Athens or­­tho­dontist who published the typhoid discovery in 2006, has assisted in restoring the skull of an 11-year-old girl found in that same grave. Known as Myrtis, she is part of the exhi­bit “Myrtis: Face to Face with the Past” at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki in Greece until March 13....

Scientific American presents Tech Talker by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Computers talk to each other and to the web in many different ways. This communication is facilitated by various devices such as routers and switches. In this week’s episode, I’ll be cover just what these devices are, what they do, and which are best for your computing needs! As you probably know, there are quite a few devices that are help facilitate the communication of computers....

SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. Fourteen years ago, when a frustrated Paul Crutzen blurted out the word “Anthropocene” at a scientific meeting in Mexico, the famous atmospheric chemist was expressing his despair at the scale of human damage to Earth. So profound has been the influence of humans, Nobelist Crutzen and his colleagues later wrote, that the planet has entered a new geologic epoch defined by a single, troubling fact: The “human imprint on the global environment has now become so large and active that it rivals some of the great forces of nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system....

This past winter several polls asked respondents whether they would get a COVID-19 vaccine when one became available to them. Nearly half of Americans—47 percent by one count—said “no” or “maybe.” Vaccine hesitancy has been decreasing in recent months as evidence of vaccine safety has accumulated, but this number indicates a potentially major challenge to achieving herd immunity and returning life in this country to normal. Even more troubling is that U....

The U.S. heartland can look forward to hotter, wetter summers, according to the latest climate research. Global warming will cause more severe thunderstorms—convective cloud fronts that could produce wind gusts of 58 miles (93 kilometers) per hour, 0.75-inch (1.9-centimeter) size hailstones and even more frequent tornadoes—in the region, according to research led by atmospheric scientist Robert Trapp at Purdue University. At the same time, according to independent environmental consultant Kristie Ebi, heat waves like the one in Chicago that killed 700 people in 1995 will become more commonplace....

Deep in the lush Mahale Mountains of Tanzania, a chimpanzee strips a twig of its leaves and then plunges it into the ground. When she yanks it out, the twig is crawling with tasty termites. The chimp slurps the insects off the stick before fishing for more six-legged snacks. Halfway around the world, a three-year-old British child sits before a cardboard box. A small hole reveals three sponges inside. If he can get the sponges out, he will earn a sticker....

When it comes to climate change denial, not all human beings are created equal. As a recent study shows, conservative white males are less likely to believe in climate change. “It’s not surprising,” said Aaron McCright, sociology professor at Michigan State University, who is a white male himself. But anecdotal evidence is not scientific, he said. “You really don’t know what’s going on until you crunch the numbers and find out....