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The oldest example of grave flowers has been discovered in Israel. An ancient burial pit dating to nearly 14,000 years ago contained impressions from stems and flowers of aromatic plants such as mint and sage. The new find “is the oldest example of putting flowers and fresh plants in the grave before burying the dead,” said study co-author Dani Nadel, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa in Israel. Though the exact purpose of these plants remains a mystery, the findings, detailed today (July 1) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed light on some of the rituals used by one of the earliest human cultures living in fixed settlements....

In 1962 Heinz Stolp, a researcher in Berlin, was searching for new viruses when he ran out of the filters that sieved them from his samples. So he substituted filters with slightly larger holes: 1.35 microns instead of 0.2 micron. No viruses, which normally reproduce very quickly, grew on the glass plates he had coated with bacteria to use as virus chow, and at that point, the contents should have been tossed....

The government of Burkina Faso granted scientists permission to release genetically engineered mosquitoes anytime this year or next, researchers announced Wednesday. It’s a key step in the broader efforts to use bioengineering to eliminate malaria in the region. The release, which scientists are hoping to execute this month, will be the first time that any genetically engineered animal is released into the wild in Africa. While these particular mosquitoes won’t have any mutations related to malaria transmission, researchers are hoping their release, and the work that led up to it, will help improve the perception of the research and trust in the science among regulators and locals alike....

You roll your head, hoping to loosen the knots in your neck, and shut your eyes. After rubbing them you settle back into staring, hunched inches away from the computer screen. Despite the brief reprise your vision remains cloudy, causing the words on the monitor to blur. At this point, you need to know: With each further click on the keyboard, video watched on YouTube, and e-mail sent—are you damaging your vision?...

Using records dating back to 1855, hurricane researchers say they have uncovered an ongoing rise in the number of Atlantic hurricanes that tracks the increase in sea surface temperature related to climate change. Critics of such a link argue that this trend is merely because of better observations since the dawn of the satellite era in the 1970s. But the authors of the new study say the conclusion is hard to dodge....

Steven Allison, an ecology researcher at the University of California, Irvine, provides this answer. Many soils are brown in color because they contain large amounts of carbon. In particular, carbon-containing polymers called humic compounds absorb most visible wavelengths of light and give soils a dark brown appearance. Often the majority of soil carbon is present as humic compounds, which means they have a large impact on soil chemistry and fertility....

CLIMATEWIRE | It has been seven years since EPA finalized a rule requiring new coal-fired power plants to capture and store a share of their carbon emissions. Despite litigation and a proposed repeal by the Trump administration, it is still in place. Now EPA is preparing to demand that newly built natural gas-fired generators do more to limit their own emissions. And environmentalists hope the new rule, expected later this year, will also rely on an aggressive technology like carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS, to deliver deep cuts in climate pollution....

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The artificial leaf promised to revolutionize the world by bringing reliable modern energy to those mired in poverty. But the company founded to commercialize the research—Sun Catalytix—has found that it needs to concentrate its efforts on something likely to make money in the nearer term, namely the kind of flow batteries that might provide large amounts of energy storage on the U.S. electric grid. The alternative energy landscape is in tumult, judging by the recent fourth annual summit of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA–E....

From Nature magazine Two anti-clotting compounds already approved for use in humans may have a surprising role in treating radiation sickness. The findings, reported online today in Nature Medicine, also reveal another avenue for understanding and treating the effects of radiation exposure. Last year’s nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, renewed anxiety over the lack of treatments for radiation poisoning. It was long thought that the effects of exposure to high doses of radiation were instantaneous and irreversible, leading to destruction of the gut and loss of bone marrow cells, which damages blood-cell production and the immune system....

More than one in four Americans suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at any given time, according to estimates from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Over our lifetime nearly one half of us suffer from such disorders. Unfortunately, nearly two thirds of our behavioral and emotional problems are never diagnosed or treated, even though in many cases effective treatment is available. More than 80 percent of people with major depression, for example, benefit substantially from a combination of medication and counseling....

Since taking office on January 20, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have signaled a clear commitment to science and pledged sweeping initiatives to reestablish and elevate its role in the federal government. President Biden immediately nominated scientists to some key positions and began implementing an ambitious agenda to revitalize the nation’s climate-change-mitigation efforts and get the coronavirus pandemic under control. “This is such a hopeful moment,” says Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists....

About a decade ago Los Angeles–based software developer Lorna Herf decided to try her hand at oil painting. She and her husband, Michael, also a computer programmer, eventually installed bright fluorescent lights in their apartment’s loft so that Lorna could paint at night and still have an accurate sense of what colors on the canvas would look like during the day. Late one evening Lorna descended to the living room, where computer screens were aglow....

With the release of more than 250,000 diplomatic documents earlier this week, WikiLeaks shifted its attention from the U.S. military to the country’s diplomats, spilling classified messages that the government obviously did not care to share with the public. The U.S. stance is that WikiLeaks is taking advantage of vulnerabilities caused by increased intra-governmental agency data sharing mandated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and that this breach will cause significant damage to national security....

About six years ago, Alberto Bardelli fell into a scientific slump. A cancer biologist at the University of Turin in Italy, he had been studying targeted therapies—drugs tailored to the mutations that drive the growth of a tumour. The strategy seemed promising, and some patients started to make dazzling recoveries. But then, inevitably, their tumours became resistant to the drugs. Time and time again, Bardelli would see them relapse. “I stumbled into a wall,” he says....

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt—New climate aid is finally beginning to flow to poorer nations that burn fossil fuels. Left on the sidelines are countries that use some of the smallest amounts of energy in the world. Many of the programs unveiled here at the global climate summit known as COP 27 benefit emerging countries with power grids that buzz with electricity derived from coal. They so far are not helping nations where electric lights and gas cooking remain stubbornly elusive....

Ever since the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996, human cloning for reproductive purposes has seemed inevitable. Notwithstanding past dubious claims of such an achievement—including one by a company backed by a UFO cult—no human clones have been made, other than those born naturally as identical twins. Despite success with other mammals, the process has proved much more difficult in humans—which may strike some people as comforting and others as disappointing....

The earliest evidence that the gut might be involved in Parkinson’s emerged more than 200 years ago. In 1817, the English surgeon James Parkinson reported that some patients with a condition he termed “shaking palsy” experienced constipation. In one of the six cases he described, treating the gastrointestinal complaints appeared to alleviate the movement-related problems associated with the disease. Since then, physicians have noted that constipation is one of the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s, appearing in around half the individuals diagnosed with the condition and often preceding the onset of movement-related impairments....

Who was the first American to orbit Earth? A) NEIL ARMSTRONG B) YURI GAGARIN C) JOHN GLENN D) NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV In schools across the U.S., multiple-choice questions such as this one provoke anxiety, even dread. Their appearance means it is testing time, and tests are big, important, excruciatingly unpleasant events. But not at Columbia Middle School in Illinois, in the classroom of eighth grade history teacher Patrice Bain. Bain has lively blue eyes, a quick smile, and spiky platinum hair that looks punkish and pixieish at the same time....

The South American dinosaur Argentinosaurus huinculensis would have had a hard time getting around. In fact, just standing up might have been difficult for the roughly 90-ton beast. When the gigantic dinosaur went extinct it left behind huge footprints and a big question: How did it move all that mass? “This is an animal that’s pushing the limits,” says biologist Bill Sellers of the University of Manchester in England. Argentinosaurus may have been the heftiest dinosaur that ever lived....

Jellyfish, sea anemones and corals, a group called cnidarians, sting with tiny, pressurized capsules that fire poisonous darts at explosive speeds. Researchers have been unsure of the exact mechanics of this blisteringly fast process, which occurs using special cell organelles called nematocysts. Now a team led by Matt Gibson and Ahmet Karabulut of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Mo., has used cutting-edge imaging technology to study nematocyst firing in very fine detail....