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There is a strong possibility that in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligences (AIs), perhaps in the form of robots, will become capable of sentient thought. Whatever form it takes, this dawning of machine consciousness is likely to have a substantial impact on human society. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and physicist Stephen Hawking have in recent months warned of the dangers of intelligent robots becoming too powerful for humans to control. The ethical conundrum of intelligent machines and how they relate to humans has long been a theme of science fiction, and has been vividly portrayed in films such as 1982’s Blade Runner and this year’s Ex Machina....

Attempts to counter global warming by modifying Earth’s atmosphere have been thrust into the spotlight following last week’s report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Mention of ‘geoengineering’ in the report summary was brief, but it suggests that the controversial area is now firmly on the scientific agenda. Some climate models suggest that geoengineering may even be necessary to keep global temperature rises to below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels....

Key concepts Sun and moon Solar system Orbits From National Science Education Standards: Changes in Earth and sky Introduction Why does the moon seem to change shape each night? The moon itself, of course, isn’t changing. But because it is moving around Earth as we move around the sun, the amount of light that we see reflecting off the surface of the moon varies from day to day. About every two weeks, the moon goes from being nearly invisible—what is called a new moon—to being bright and full in the night sky—a full moon....

The same place that gave the world the atomic bomb has now found a way to ferret out illicit nuclear material. Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a method to search for heavy elements such as uranium via subatomic particles from space called muons. By 2008, “muon tomography” might be guarding U.S. borders. About 10,000 muons reach every square meter of the earth’s surface a minute; these charged particles form as by-products of cosmic rays colliding with molecules in the upper atmosphere....

When Charles Darwin visited South America on HMS Beagle in the 1830s, he discovered fossils of several hefty mammals that defied classification, such as Macrauchenia, which looked like a humpless camel with a long snout; or Toxodon, with a rhino’s body, hippo’s head and rodent-like teeth — which he described as “perhaps one of the strangest animals ever discovered”. Since Darwin’s time, no-one has been able to work out where the bizarre beasts fit in the mammalian family tree....

President Obama’s proposed budget laid out his assumptions that a new cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions would begin to generate billions of dollars in revenue as companies are forced to comply with a market-based program. Obama’s budget includes several principles on what the administration wants to see out of a cap-and-trade program, including emission targets that cut U.S. greenhouse gas levels 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. Obama also wants midcentury cuts of 83 percent from 2005 levels....

Drilling into ground zero of the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago has uncovered the origin of its mysterious ring of mountains. The drill core penetrated a circle of mountains, known as a peak ring, in Mexico’s buried Chicxulub crater. Only the largest impacts are powerful enough to form peak rings. Understanding how these mountains formed at the 200-kilometre-wide Chicxulub could help to reveal how cosmic collisions shaped other bodies, such as the Moon and Venus....

In the year since we last presented these awards, both the world and the Web have changed in dramatic ways. The spheres of science and politics have become seemingly inextricable, forcing biologists to go to the mat with policy-makers over the issue of teaching intelligent design in school. The influence of “citizen journalist”-penned blogs has become a driving force behind the dissemination of information. And, most recently, the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has sparked discussion of whether global warming is responsible for the recent increase in storm intensity....

Wind energy is notoriously mercurial, with patterns shifting drastically over the course of years, days, even minutes. These changes make scheduling power much more difficult for utilities that rely on wind turbines to serve an increasing percentage of their power demands. Because wind power in some places is now as cheap as or cheaper than coal-fired power, future profits and challenges for the industry will be written on the wind and how well they can use it....

From sleep hogs to early birds, people have a wide range of shut-eye needs. Now researchers report in the journal Nature that they have identified a single gene in fruit flies that determines how much rest the creatures require. Because humans carry a similar gene, the findings may shed light on the mechanisms and functions of sleep. The ability to get by on very little sleep is a trait that seems to run in families, suggesting it may have a genetic component....

By Kathleen Raven of Nature Medicine Families with autistic children must navigate a condition where questions outnumber the answers, and therapies remain sparse and largely ineffective. A clinical trial being conducted by the Sutter Neuroscience Institute in Sacramento, California to address this situation began recruiting participants today for a highly experimental stem cell therapy for autism. The institute plans to find 30 autistic children between ages 2 and 7 with cord blood banked at the privately-run Cord Blood Registry, located about 100 miles west of the institute....

Summertime is primetime for national parks. As snow melts, wildflowers bloom and waterfalls roar, generations of visitors have flocked to the natural wonders that dot the American landscape (to say nothing of all the amazing cultural sites the National Park Service protects). The National Park Service was created a century ago—August 25, 1916 to be exact—to keep an eye on the growing treasure trove of national parks. It’s been a good century as more and more land has been set aside and annual visitors now number more than 300 million, but it’s also not been without challenges....

Most of us hold unrealistically optimistic views of the future, research shows, downplaying the likelihood that we will have bad experiences. Now a study in Nature Neuroscience last October has found clues to the brain’s predilection for the positive, identifying regions that may fuel this “optimism bias” by preferentially responding to rosier information. Tali Sharot, a University College London neurology researcher, and her colleagues asked 19 individuals between the ages of 19 and 27 to estimate their odds of experiencing 80 unfavorable events, such as contracting various diseases or being the victim of a crime....

As a young man I enjoyed listening to a particular series of French instructional programs. I didn’t understand a word, but was nevertheless enthralled. Was it because the sounds of human speech are thrilling? Not really. Speech sounds alone, stripped of their meaning, don’t inspire. We don’t wake up to alarm clocks blaring German speech. We don’t drive to work listening to native spoken Eskimo, and then switch it to the Bushmen Click station during the commercials....

Did you like this interview? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The decline of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean and Near East has puzzled historians and archaeologists for centuries. While many have ascribed the collapse of several civilizations to the enigmatic Sea Peoples, Professor Eric H. Cline, former Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at George Washington University, presents a more complicated and nuanced scenario in his book, 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The term “Athenian Calendar” (also called the “Attic Calendar”) has become somewhat of a misnomer, since Ancient Athenians never really used just one method to reckon the passage of time. Athenians, especially from the 3rd Century BCE forward, could consult any one of five separate “calendars:” Olympiad, Seasonal, Civil, Conciliar, and finally Metonic – depending on what event or type of event they wished to chronical....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Money may take many forms, from the digital code of cryptocurrency to the woodpecker scalps favoured in early California. People have also used cattle, cacao beans, cowrie shells, chewing gum, grain, and giant stones as money. Early cultures became especially fond of metals, particularly silver, gold, and electrum (an alloy of the other two)....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) died in the second of the Kappel Wars in 1531, a conflict between Catholic and Protestant forces. Afterwards, two accounts of his death emerged – one Catholic and one Protestant – differing in detail and notable as examples of the schism between the two groups caused by Zwingli’s reformation....

Sometime in the 5th century B.C. the Greek philosopher Hippasus of Metapontum, a member of the secretive Pythagorean brotherhood, left his home in southern Italy and boarded a seagoing ship. We do not know why Hippasus was traveling or where he was journeying, but we do know he didn’t make it. According to the legend, once the ship was far from shore the poor philosopher was set upon by his fellow Pythagoreans and tossed into the sea....

In the textbook description of photosynthesis, sunlight fuels the production of sugars that are in turn converted into fuel for the photosynthetic organism. But a recent discovery from the deep blue sea may force a revision of that account. Scientists have found a photosynthetic bacterium that doesn’t live off the light of the sun. Instead, it uses the dim light given off by hydrothermal vents some 2,400 meters below the ocean’s surface....