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It’s shark season — primarily on cable TV. As the decades-long tradition of “Shark Week” approaches, you can expect once again to hear of “serial killer” sharks, attacks near major coastal cities, and menacing, massive shark swarms. But, as you probably also know, shark attacks are incredibly unlikely. You’re 75 times more likely to be killed by lightening than by a shark. On average, one person dies of a shark attack every other year in the United States....

Many studies have confirmed the link between childhood sexual abuse and substance-related problems in adulthood. But a new investigation finds that being raped or molested at a young age also makes young girls far more likely to start drinking or doing drugs during their preteen years. The study, published in the May issue of the journal Addiction, is the first to demonstrate that childhood sexual abuse has an early impact on girls’ use of alcohol, marijuana and tobacco, with many picking up their first drink before age 10....

Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension: A Mathematician’s Journey through Narcissistic Numbers, Optimal Dating Algorithms, at Least Two Kinds of Infinity, and More, by Matt Parker. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015; 464 pages. Mathematics popularizer Matt Parker, an Australian based in England, is a self-proclaimed “standup mathematician” perhaps best known for his numerous contributions to the Numberphile YouTube channel. He is also the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London, and his new book, Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, is an ambitious and delightful addition to the current age’s plethora of high-quality volumes on recreational mathematics—even if most of the material he covers is focused on 2-D and 3-D....

Biologists long thought they understood how genetic mutations cause disease. But recent work has revealed an important twist in the tale and uncovered surprising—even counterintuitive—ways that alterations in DNA can make people sick. The classic view assumed that what are termed “silent” mutations were inconsequential to health, because such changes in DNA would not alter the composition of the proteins encoded by genes. Proteins function in virtually every process carried out by cells, from catalyzing biochemical reactions to recognizing foreign invaders....

What do the iPhone 6 and Samsung have in common? Not much, according to a report. Samsung will not be making processors for Apple’s iPhone 6, so says the Korea Economic Daily in a report dated Wednesday. To counter the “damage caused” by “Apple shunning Samsung” for the iPhone 6 processor, the Korean company is developing a processor with an integrated 3G/4G modem for low-cost phones to compete with Qualcomm and MediaTek, the report said....

Scientific American presents Nutrition Diva by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Although I don’t drink much soda (or, as they call it where I grew up, “pop”), I do enjoy drinking sparkling, or carbonated, water and often recommend it as a healthful alternative to soda. But several of you have written with concerns that drinking carbonated water might be bad for you....

Just offshore from the pebble beaches of Bere Point on Malcolm Island, British Columbia, the Naiad Explorer rocks gently in the waters of the Queen Charlotte Strait. The sun has burned off most of the morning mist, save for a thin layer that still shrouds the tips of the island’s cedars, firs and spruces. I watch from the boat as three killer whale brothers named Cracroft, Plumper and Kaikash gently scrape their bodies against the small, smooth stones in the shallows off the bow....

Key concepts Nutrients Diet Food Health Chemical reactions Introduction Have you ever noticed if the salt you’re using says it’s “iodized”? Iodine is a micronutrient, which means we need it in small quantities to be healthy. Because iodine is relatively rare in many people’s normal diets, it’s added to table salt. Then when people salt their food, such as tasty turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, they’re also getting iodine. In this science activity you’ll use some kitchen-friendly chemistry to investigate which types of salt have iodine and which don’t....

Editor’s note (9/9/2016): North Korea claimed to have conducted its fifth underground nuclear test on Friday. The explosion created a magnitude 5.3 earthquake, according to officials in South Korea, indicating that North’s nuclear devices are becoming increasingly powerful. The country’s first test, in October 2006, produced a magnitude 4.3 tremor and had a yield of less than one kiloton of TNT. The latest test seems to have produced a force equivalent to about 10 kilotons of TNT....

If it seems the state of the world is on an endless downward trajectory these days, take heart. Things might not be quite as bad as you think. New research, published in June in Science, suggests that as social problems such as extreme poverty or violence become less prevalent, people may be prone to perceive that they linger—and are perhaps even getting worse. Led by psychologist Daniel Gilbert at Harvard University, the researchers found people readily and unconsciously change how they define certain concepts—ranging from specific colors to unethical behavior—based on how frequently they run into them....

For more than 11 years, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has been laboring to revise the current version of its best-selling guidebook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (see “Psychiatry’s Bible Gets an Overhaul” in Scientific American MIND). Although the DSM is often called the bible of psychiatry, it is not sacred scripture to all clinicians—many regard it more as a helpful corollary to their own expertise. Still, insurance companies in the U....

Among the most common complications of pregnancy is a high level of glucose in the blood, a condition known as gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Because it usually goes away after birth, GDM was not always seen as a serious concern, although the excess sugar often produces very large, hard-to-deliver newborns. “For a long time it was not regarded as a real disease,” says clinical epidemiologist Cuilin Zhang of the National University of Singapore....

By Richard Van Noorden of Nature magazineWhen chemists design new detergents, shampoos, paints, and lubricants, they don’t immediately consider whether their molecules will have toxic side-effects. That task has traditionally been left to toxicologists further down the production line.But synthetic chemists can and should take earlier responsibility for the safety of their molecules, urges a group led by Julie Zimmerman at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.In a paper published in Green Chemistry, the researchers show how obeying two key rules of thumb greatly reduces the chances of a molecule being acutely toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms....

“Thank you for leading us to these places of comfort,” one participant said. “It helped me feel connected to a greater sense of being, which is so needed during these times.” Her words echoed many of the participants’ sentiments in Finding Comfort, the first installment of the Hope Storytelling Project. We were inspired to create the project, a series of virtual poetry workshops held in partnership with the Cambridge Public Library and the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, for a simple reason: to create community through poetry....

Jon Sjoberg knew there was trouble this past July when recreational fishers approached him with two one-year-old, nine-inch northern pike. The fish came from Comins Lake, the fourth most popular fishery in Nevada. Until recently the lake had kept pike out, he says—“and then boom!” it was back. In a seemingly unprecedented maneuver, the Nevada Department of Wildlife is offering $10,000 for information on the person responsible for releasing these predators in the lake....

Beauty and the Beast is a timeless tale: A lovely girl encounters a not-so-attractive, even beast-like man. There is no love at first sight in this story; Beauty, in fact, finds the Beast repulsive. Over time, however, as Beauty gets to know the Beast, she uncovers his warm nature and her heart softens. Ultimately, the story delivers on its fairy tale ending and Beauty falls in love with Beast despite his appearance....

The Dixie Fire is headed toward becoming the biggest blaze in California history as it devours mountainsides of brittle trees and shrubs caused by a yearslong drought and record heat. Firefighters have been battling the wildfire in the Sierra Nevada since mid-July. It has burned more than 927,000 acres, and 41% of it is still blazing uncontrollably. Mike Yeun, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), acknowledged that the fire could overtake the huge blaze that set state records last year, but he said, “We’re hoping that it doesn’t....

While we want to believe that adulthood means the end of off-limits lunch tables, demeaning back talk, and snarky gossip, unfortunately, middle-school bullies and mean girls grow up and go to work. Bullies of the playground often grow up to become bullies of the workplace, which means too many of us find ourselves in eerily familiar scenarios to our dark days of junior high. Unfortunately, grown-up queen bee and bullying behavior remains the same as back in the day: it systematically targets a colleague with the intention to intimidate, undermine, or degrade....

Martha Cameron has gone to great lengths to make her home self-sufficient. The 40-year resident of Brooklyn’s upscale Park Slope neighborhood installed 18 photovoltaic panels on the roof of her three-story brownstone in 2010, and during the warmer months it generates enough electricity to run the first two floors of the building. Cameron does not have batteries to store the energy, so she relies on the power company to absorb electricity from her solar panels and feed it back to her through the existing grid....

We humans have left our mark on the entire planet; not a single ecosystem remains completely untouched. But some landscapes have been affected less than others. And the extent to which the earth can provide habitats for plants and animals, sequester atmospheric carbon and regulate the flow of freshwater depends on the vastness of the least affected regions. These tracts, where human influence is still too weak to easily detect by satellite, are prime targets for conservation....