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By watching how the light dims as a planet orbits in front of its parent star, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered more than 1,000 worlds since its launch in 2009. Now, astronomers are flipping that idea on its head in the hope of finding and talking to alien civilizations. Scientists searching for extraterrestrial intelligence should target exoplanets from which Earth can be seen passing in front of the Sun, says René Heller, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany....

Credit: Danté Fenolio/Science Source BLACKOUT EATER Reclusive telescopefish live nearly a mile below the ocean’s surface, where they feed on bioluminescent creatures. They orient themselves vertically to pick out the silhouettes of prey swimming overhead, then strike with their nasty jaws. Whenever they ingest a glowing meal, they risk lighting up from within, broadcasting their location to their own predators. To stay hidden in the dark waters, the fish have evolved an opaque stomach that acts like a built-in blackout curtain after they have eaten....

WOODLAND, Calif. —Marisol Sanabria points to a small white device about the size of her palm encased in a hard clear plastic box. Mounted on the wall above a kitchen countertop between a blender and a gleaming stainless steel toaster, the device, which emits a soft purple glow from one side and red glow on the other, is the only visible piece of evidence that shows Sanabria and her family of five live in a home designed to produce as much energy as it uses, also known as a zero-net-energy (ZNE) home....

SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. Editor’s note: This is the last of a series of interviews with leading scientists, produced in conjunction with the World Economic Forum on the occasion of last week’s conference in Davos, Switzerland; interviews for the WEF by Katia Moskvitch. Antibiotics have saved millions of lives—but their misuse and overuse is making them less effective as bacteria develop resistance....

Researchers announced today that they are building a new facility dedicated to finding an effective vaccine against malaria, a potentially deadly disease spread by mosquitoes that annually strikes some 500 million worldwide and kills as many as one million people, mostly children in Africa. The debilitating disease was eradicated in the U.S. in 1949 (by spraying mosquitoes with the now-banned pesticide DDT) and is now only seen in this country infecting tourists, soldiers and others who contracted it in endemic regions....

Ancient evidence of a familiar foe has emerged in a fossil tick infested with what appears to be spirochetes, a group of rotini-shaped bacteria responsible for many human diseases. The spirochetes in question closely resemble those of modern-day Borrelia, the genus responsible for Lyme disease. The finding, recently described in Historical Biology, could offer insight into the evolutionary history of the Lyme disease–causing pathogen that plagues people today, but is also notable for its novelty....

Argentina’s Chaco Province, a vast plain once covered by dense forest, is today home to farmland. The flat terrain, however, is not a typical agrarian landscape but rather is studded with enormous metallic meteorites and craters created by pieces of the same source rock. The region is referred to as Campo del Cielo (Field of Heaven or Field of the Sky), unique in the world for its trove of well-preserved objects from space....

Nearly a century after the discovery of strange star-shaped cells in the brain, scientists say they have finally begun to unravel their function. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in Science that it appears astrocytes—named for their stellar form—provide nerve cells (neurons) with the energy they need to function and communicate with one another, by signaling blood to deliver the cell fuels glucose and oxygen to them. When astrocytes were first discovered, it was believed that they were bit players in the brain....

Proposals for a large public-private initiative to synthesize an entire human genome from scratch – an effort that could take a decade and require billions of dollars for technological development – were formally unveiled today, a month after they were first aired at a secretive meeting. Proponents of the effort, named ‘Human Genome Project-write’ (HGP-write), wrote in the journal Science that $100 million from a range of funding sources would help get their vision off the ground....

People aren’t the only animals who know when they’ve gotten a raw deal. So do monkeys and chimpanzees, according to some clever experiments concluded recently at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. The findings provide insight into how social environment and relationships sway human decision making, reports Sarah F. Brosnan, who conducted the studies with Frans de Waal at the center. That nonhuman primates react to social unfairness suggests that such judgment is deeply rooted in evolution....

It is arguably the greatest scientific crime ever committed in Britain. In December 1912, Charles Dawson, an amateur antiquarian and solicitor archaeologist, presented part of a human-like skull to the world which he claimed was the “missing link” between ape and human. While the discovery made waves at the time, new dating technologies in the 1950s revealed that these bones were nowhere near old enough to make up such a link and that the fossils had therefore been a hoax....

Ship traffic, seismic tests and sonar pings can make navigating the seas tricky for whales. But with the help of the heat and sound naturally generated by the warm-blooded creatures, researchers are hoping to make their waters safe again. “They are basically deer on the highway,” says Christopher Clark, director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University. “And they don’t get a chance to learn—they only get one trial.”...

In 2002 a clinical trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s vaccine was halted when a few patients began experiencing brain inflammation, a result of the immune system mounting an attack against the body. Now some researchers claim that inducing a mild autoimmune reaction could actually protect the central nervous system from a spectrum of neurodegenerative conditions, from glaucoma and spinal cord injury to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. “This is a hot-button issue right now,” says Howard Gendelman of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha....

Excerpted from Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain, by Patricia S. Churchland. Copyright © 2013 Patricia S. Churchland. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. The Joy of Hating Sometimes play fighting crosses the line into real fighting. Sometimes defensive combat emerges when trust should prevail. Sometimes the wiring for impulse control is overwhelmed. By ideology. By rhetoric. By fear and hate. Sometimes . . ....

WASHINGTON—President Trump, breaking a tradition that stretches back nearly two decades, will not personally greet the eight American Nobel laureates this year before they travel to Sweden in December to receive their prizes. Not all the honorees are disappointed. Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was “very relieved” when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president....

By James Karuga KISERIAN, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Maasai pastoralists have found an innovative way to generate biogas: using animal blood and waste from the Keekonyokie slaughterhouse. The facility in Kenya’s Kajiado County uses the gas it produces to generate electricity that powers the meat cold room and processing equipment. It also pipes the gas to local hotels, while the slurry becomes fertilizer for grazing pastures. Now the Maasai hope to take the project a step further and become the first group in the country to package the alternative fuel into cylinders – and finally make it mobile....

The U.S. Department of the Interior Wednesday listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 based on evidence that the animal’s sea ice habitat is shrinking and is likely to continue to do so over the next several decades. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, however, made clear several times during a press conference announcing the department’s decision that, despite his acknowledgement that the polar bear’s sea ice habitat is melting due to global warming, the ESA will not be used as a tool for trying to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for creating climate change....

The messages, many deeply personal, focus on the regional boundaries that divide life from death for patients with liver disease. “My partner passed away waiting for a liver transplant in Chicago,” one commenter wrote in support of a proposal to change the nation’s system of allocating livers. “Any move that can make access to transplant more equitable is a move in the right direction.” Another commenter, from South Carolina, disagreed: “I’m a 63 year old male that had a successful liver transplant on 5/9/14′ at MUSC Charleston SC…I truly believe residents of SC should receive these desperately need[ed] organs first, before shipping them to other regions....

Last night Sen. John McCain’s office announced the maverick politician had been diagnosed with a type of aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma. This kind of tumor usually arises from star-shaped cells called astrocytes that make up the supportive tissue of the brain. It is particularly difficult to control because it does not grow as a round, well-circumscribed mass—instead, because astrocytes’ main job is to travel among the neurons, it is able to send out fingerlike projections throughout the brain, essentially creating tiny, multiple “highways” that spread malignant cells with extreme efficiency....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. On Dec. 22 at 9:03 p.m. local time, a 64-hectare (158-acre) chunk of Anak Krakatau volcano, in Indonesia, slid into the ocean following an eruption. This landslide created a tsunami that struck coastal regions in Java and Sumatra, killing at least 426 people and injuring 7,202. Satellite data and helicopter footage taken on Dec....