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Imagine biting into a juicy burger that was produced without killing animals. Meat grown in a laboratory from cultured cells is turning that vision into a reality. Several start-ups are developing lab-grown beef, pork, poultry and seafood—among them Mosa Meat, Memphis Meats, SuperMeat and Finless Foods. And the field is attracting millions in funding. In 2017, for instance, Memphis Meats took in $17 million from sources that included Bill Gates and agricultural company Cargill....

From Simons Science News (find original story here). The mathematics of knot theory says that a simple loop and a trefoil are fundamentally different knots. But is that all there is to the question? How can you take a rubber band and turn it into a knot? Knot theory is the study of knots and their diagrams. It includes techniques for characterizing how knots can be transformed in three-dimensional space and tests for determining when two different-looking knots are actually equivalent....

With a scan through a sample of genomes from several individuals, researchers can tease out links among genetic variations and particular diseases. These genome-wide association studies have clarified some of the genes involved in predisposing people for rheumatoid arthritis, bipolar disorder, Crohn’s disease, diabetes and other disorders, paving the way for new study and better treatments. For many complex diseases, however, genetics tell only part of the story. Environmental factors, such as diet and chemical exposure, have become increasingly obvious players in determining a person’s risk of various diseases....

Scientists in Canada and China have shown that the effectiveness of commercial sunscreens can be enhanced by the addition of lignin and, as an unprecedented bonus; sunlight exposure may help them work even better. Lignin, a complex organic polymer found in the cell walls of plants, is already known to be a good UV-absorber and a broad-spectrum sun blocker. Over 50 million tons of lignin is produced industrially each year, but it has never been used in sunscreens before due to safety concerns....

Lost Nucleotides Although Alexander S. Bradley’s article “Expanding the Limits of Life” provides a fascinating account of the discovery of microbes in a previously unknown kind of hydrothermal vent ecosystem on the seafloor, it does not substantiate his claim that the findings hint that life may have originated in an environment like the Lost City hydrothermal vent. Bradley suggests that Lost City produces “small organic acids such as formate and acetate” and that similar vents might have produced “simple organic acids” and “even more complex fatty acids” or “at least simple organic compounds....

Dear EarthTalk: How are monarch butterflies doing today? They used to pass through my area in big numbers, but in the last few years there seem to be many fewer.—Bill Wright, Erie, Pa. The monarch butterfly, royally adorned in black, white and reddish-orange and able to migrate as far as 2,800 miles, is a true wonder of nature. Each year monarchs travel from Canada and the U.S. to hibernate in the forests of central Mexico....

The US Supreme Court began its latest term on 1 October amid a fierce political battle. Lawmakers in the Senate have split down party lines over President Donald Trump’s pick to fill a vacant seat on the court. Trump’s choice, conservative federal judge Brett Kavanaugh, faces allegations of sexual assault that have delayed a Senate vote on his nomination. (Kavanaugh denies the allegations.) For now, the court is evenly divided between conservative and liberal justices....

Lori Garver, NASA’s former deputy administrator, is famously opposed to reinventing the wheel. NASA, she has written, wasn’t created to do something again. It’s no surprise, then, that she has become a thoughtful critic of the space agency’s approach for returning humans to the moon, which relies on rocketry similar to what NASA used to launch Apollo- and space-shuttle-era astronauts decades ago. NASA, Garver argues, is at its best when it wields its formidable powers to tackle challenges well beyond the reach of the private sector, whether in exploring other planets or helping to protect our own....

The carnivore needs no introduction: fearsome, cold and brutal. But G. A. Bradshaw, known for her psychological work with elephants, asks readers to reconsider. In “Carnivore Minds,” she argues that predators are none of these things. She uses the orca for a case study in the evolution of morals; to explore emotional intelligence, her main example is the crocodile. Through “trans-species psychology,” Bradshaw asks us to consider the many ways that the animals we fear are far more similar to us than we might like to think....

Tensions are mounting as we hurtle towards Election Day this Tuesday, yet with all the focus on who’s voting and where, most of us have put little thought into another essential part of the election process: the voting ballot itself. There are significant issues with the mechanics of voting, including the design of ballots and instructions for using them. Philip Kortum is a psychology professor at Rice University who studies how people interact with voting systems in real-world settings....

During the recent protests over the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans, police forces across the country have used weapons categorized as “less lethal” to disperse crowds and subdue individuals. But despite their label, these tools can still overstep the inherent limitations of flesh and bone. Devices that sound innocuous—rubber bullets, tear gas—are designed to quickly change human behavior through force and chemistry. And they are sold as an alternative to the kind of force that immediately kills....

The concept of mindfulness involves focusing on your present situation and state of mind. This can mean awareness of your surroundings, emotions and breathing—or, more simply, enjoying each bite of a really good sandwich. Research in recent decades has linked mindfulness practices to a staggering collection of possible health benefits. Tuning into the world around you may provide a sense of well-being, an array of studies claim. Multiple reports link mindfulness with improved cognitive functioning....

As sea levels rise, U.S. communities have several strategies to cope with the effects of climate change, the president of the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday. There’s triage for high-dollar assets, like airports and military installations and even the Statue of Liberty, Marcia McNutt said. But more and more, she added, “organized retreat” is a part of the conversation. That strategy, once politically unpalatable, has emerged from the shadows in recent months as scientists, community leaders and governments try to figure out how to move people out of the way of coastal flooding and other hazards....

The debate on whether evolution should be taught in America’s classrooms is as old as the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Recently, a similar effort has come under fire by education leaders and legislators: how to teach global warming. A flurry of bills that critics say would allow climate change denial to be taught in public schools have been moving through state legislatures throughout the United States, with some success. The legislation is promoted and often directly supported by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit that promotes “intelligent design research” as part of its “Academic Freedom” campaign....

1971 Jupiter Pioneers “Two 560-pound spacecraft are being prepared for the longest flight yet attempted: a mission to Jupiter. Pioneer F and Pioneer G will each be equipped with 11 instruments. The voyages will take between 19 and 32 months and will cover 600 million to 900 million kilometers. Each spacecraft will spend about four days in the vicinity of the solar system’s largest planet. Digital data will be transmitted to the Earth at the rate of 1,024 bits per second and received by three dish antennas with a diameter of 210 feet: one in California, one in Australia and one in Spain....

Carbon dioxide: We’re emitting too much of it in our industrial processes. We’re not trapping enough of it in vegetation. Oh, and its presence in our exhaled breath provides mosquitoes carrying maladies like West Nile virus and malaria with a veritable GPS to our bloodstreams. Rockefeller University researchers have identified two proteins expressed by carbon dioxide-sensing neurons in drosophila fruit flies and mosquitoes–a discovery they say could help them design better insect repellants to shield us from the disease-laden bugs....

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the May 2003 issue of Scientific American. The world lost the creators of two of its most celebrated biohoaxes recently: Douglas Herrick, father of the risibly ridiculous jackalope (half jackrabbit, half antelope), and Ray L. Wallace, paternal guardian of the less absurd Bigfoot. The jackalope enjoins laughter in response to such peripheral hokum as hunting licenses sold only to those whose IQs range between 50 and 72, bottles of the rare but rich jackalope milk, and additional evolutionary hybrids such as the jackapanda....

Dolphins can now add magnetic sense to their already impressive resume of abilities, new research suggests. When researchers presented the brainy cetaceans with magnetized or unmagnetized objects, the dolphins swam more quickly toward the magnets, the new study found. The animals may use their magnetic sense to navigate based on the Earth’s magnetic field, the researchers said. A number of different animals are thought to possess this magnetic sense, called “magnetoreception,” including turtles, pigeons, rodents, insects, bats and even deer (which are related to dolphins), said Dorothee Kremers, an animal behavior expert at the University of Rennes, in France, and co-author of the study published today (Sept....

Growth is widely thought to be the panacea for all the major economic ills of the modern world. Poverty? Just grow the economy (that is, increase the production of goods and services and spur consumer spending) and watch wealth trickle down. Don’t try to redistribute wealth from rich to poor, because that slows growth. Unemployment? Increase demand for goods and services by lowering interest rates on loans and stimulating investment, which leads to more jobs as well as growth....

Deep below the dinosaur displays, a laboratory in the basement of a 19th-century building at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City houses the institute’s newest collection: eight large, liquid nitrogen–cooled cryogenic vats. Called the Ambrose Monell Collection for Molecular and Microbial Research, the lab is home to thousands of frozen microscopic genetic samples. And the collection is about to receive some important new—and rare—specimens. Yesterday, representatives from the National Park Service, which manages land on which many of the U....