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November 1966 Industrial China “As a result of the Chinese criticisms of Russian leaders, the U.S.S.R. suddenly withdrew its technical advisers and workers from China in August, 1960. The factories under construction and those already in operation were left without skilled personnel. Faced with the necessity of training her own people to complete the construction projects and run the factories, the Chinese government issued a new slogan: ‘Self-development.’ From 1960 on China depended largely on her own resources for training engineers, technicians and researchers....

Alterations in the genetic coding for a nerve cell receptor, which detects a chemical signal that is key to behavioral change, could point the way to designing therapies most effective for patients suffering from schizophrenia, drug addiction and other mental illnesses. “I don’t know if what we just published is a viable biomarker,” says Wolfgang Sadee, chair of the Department of Pharmacology at The Ohio State University (O.S.U.) College of Medicine and the co-author of a report on the finding published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA....

I have been hiking through an oil palm plantation in Borneo for hours but have yet to see a single oil palm. Instead, mahogany and other native tree species tower overhead. Mushrooms, flowers and huge pitcher plants uniquely adapted to the island’s peat swamp forests line my trail. This lush portion of the plantation should be ideal habitat for orangutans. I have not spotted any, but according to Hendriyanto, my guide from the plantation’s conservation team, an estimated 14 of the red apes do indeed live here....

The year 2020 was on track to be a good one for South Sudan’s polio hunters. But now many of those working in the global polio eradication campaign are grappling with the potential reversal of much of their work. All house-to-house immunization efforts have been suspended because of the continuing coronavirus pandemic. Disease surveillance officers can scarcely travel at all. Polio samples awaiting testing are trapped in South Sudan because there are no flights to transport them to external laboratories, and local experts are bracing for the worst....

The newest batch of sentries at Naval Base Kitsap–Bangor will not have to wear uniforms. But they won’t get to clock out for breaks—and they will be paid in fish. The base near Washington’s Puget Sound is slated to receive up to 20 Navy-trained bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to patrol the shoreline around the submarine base as part of a bolstered security initiative started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks....

Two years after Congress removed gray wolves from the endangered species list in the northern Rockies, the animals are facing a new threat: disease. Outbreaks of infections such as sarcoptic mange, which is spread by mites, and canine distemper virus (CDV), have reduced wolf survival rates and contributed to an overall decline in Yellowstone National Park wolves. Until recently, wolf populations in Yellowstone had been on a steady upswing. In 1995 park managers brought in 31 gray wolves from Canada to restore a population that had been virtually wiped out by hunting and other forms of depredation....

From Quanta Magazine (find original story here). “Think of a deck of cards,” said Dan Larremore. Now, take a pair of scissors and chop the 52 cards into chunks. Throw them in the air. Card confetti rains down, so the pieces are nowhere near where they started. Now tape them into 52 new cards, each one a mosaic of the original cards. After 48 hours, repeat. You have just reenacted the process that Plasmodium falciparum uses to avoid the immune system....

When Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 debuted in November, it offered a revolutionary way to interact with gaming systems, using only bodily motion as the controller. Already a success in the home—Microsoft says it has sold eight million Kinect sensors so far—controllerless computer interfaces could soon move beyond play to help out in the work place, for example, enabling manipulation of digital files using only gestures à la the film Minority Report....

The lead attorney for U.S. manufacturers and oil and gas companies on a climate change lawsuit didn’t know the answer to a measurement fact when asked in court two weeks ago, court papers show. At a Feb. 7 hearing of Juliana, et al v. United States of America, et al — a case a group of kids, young adults and environmentalists brought in 2015 against the U.S. government — Frank Volpe said he didn’t know whether carbon dioxide levels had reached 400 parts per million, a measurement of atmospheric concentration....

Key concepts Chemistry Carbonation Chemical reactions Candy Introduction Have you ever opened a fresh bottle of carbonated water or soda, poured a glass of it, and just watched as the bubbles fizzed upward in the glass? Have you ever wondered what those bubbles are? They’re made of carbon dioxide gas, which was packed tight in the soda before you opened the bottle. Not only can that carbon dioxide gas give you a fizzy drink to enjoy, but it can also give you a show....

Artificial light is often seen as a sign of progress: the march of civilization shines a light in the dark; it takes back the night; it illuminates. But a chorus of scientists and advocates argues that unnaturally bright nights are bad not just for astronomers but also for nocturnal animals and even for human health. Now research shows the night is getting even brighter. From 2012 to 2016 the earth’s artificially lit area expanded by an estimated 2....

In 1956 Scientific American published an article by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman entitled “Gdel’s Proof.” Two years later the writers published a book with the same title–a wonderful work that is still in print. I was a child, not even a teenager, and I was obsessed by this little book. I remember the thrill of discovering it in the New York Public Library. I used to carry it around with me and try to explain it to other children....

Environmental sustainability is already very difficult to achieve with today’s 6.6 billion people and average economic output of $8,000 per person. By 2050 the earth could be home to more than nine billion people with an average output of $20,000 or more, putting vastly greater pressures on the Earth’s ecosystems if technologies of production and consumption remain largely unchanged. Many environmentalists take it for granted that richer countries will have to cut their consumption sharply to stave off ecological disaster....

Zoos looking to breed cheetahs in captivity face a serious matchmaking problem. But researchers may have found an unconventional solution: letting feline bachelorettes choose a mate based on the scent of his pee. New research shows that female cheetahs can detect the genetic relatedness of a potential mate from the smell of his urine alone—and prefer that of more distantly related males. The finding could improve captive-breeding programs and help conserve the speedy cats....

Scientists did not invent the vast majority of visual illusions. Rather artists have used their insights into the workings of the human eyes and brain to create illusions in their artwork. Long before visual science existed as a formal discipline, artists had devised techniques to “trick” the brain into thinking that a flat canvas was three-dimensional or that a series of brushstrokes in a still life was in fact a bowl of luscious fruit....

In the 1920s the behavioral psychologist Karl Lashley conducted a now famous series of experiments in an attempt to identify the part of the brain in which memories are stored. He trained rats to find their way through a maze, then made lesions in different parts of the cerebral cortex in an attempt to erase what he called the “engram,” or the original memory trace. Lashley failed to find the engram—his experimental animals were still able to find their way through the maze, no matter where he put lesions on their brains....

An early warning system for California earthquakes could soon get a much-needed dose of money, a state lawmaker announced today (Jan 28). State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) introduced legislation to fund a California-wide earthquake early warning system during a press conference at Caltech. The technology for a warning system already exists, through a prototype called the California Integrated Seismic Network, but scientists need more money to take it public. Other earthquake-prone countries with public warning systems include Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and Turkey....

Lou Gehrig was a star baseball player who led the New York Yankees to six World Series titles before he was diagnosed with a devastating disease in 1939, when he was still in his mid-30s. The disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), causes the motor neurons that enable muscle movement to deteriorate, gradually leading to the loss of the ability to move, eat, speak and even breathe. Gehrig’s illness, which had already been documented for decades, helped raise public awareness before the first baseman passed away in 1941—so much so that “Lou Gehrig’s disease” later became a common name for the condition....

The average person can focus on only three objects at once, yet he or she can follow a soccer game and accurately estimate, in just half a second, how many players from each team are on the field. Justin Halberda, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist, explains that “people can focus on more than three items at a time if those items share a common color.” The color coding enables them to perceive separate individuals as a single set....

Automakers are ramping up lobbying efforts ahead of a key midterm review of the Obama administration’s fuel efficiency standards for cars. Unexpected shortfalls in average fuel economy performance, brought about by low oil prices, have sparked fierce debate among regulators, environmentalists and auto industry representatives. The flare-up comes before the important review of the economy standards spurs potential decisions that could strengthen or weaken the rules that determine how far cars can travel on a gallon of gas....