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Another year of skywatching is upon us, and there’s a lot to look forward to in 2016. Here are some of the more noteworthy sky events — including multiple meteor showers and a total eclipse of the sun— that will take place this year. Space.com’s Night Sky column will provide more extensive coverage of most of these events as they draw closer. Jan. 19: Occultation of Aldebaran. A waxing gibbous moon will cross in front of one of the brightest and most colorful stars in the sky, orange Aldebaran....

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled on Monday that gay men can donate blood 12 months after their last sexual contact with another man, overturning a 30-year ban aimed at preventing the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The agency said people with hemophilia and related blood clotting disorders will continue to be banned from donating blood due to potential harm they could suffer from large needles. Previously they were banned due to an increased risk of transmitting HIV....

Lisa, an elementary school teacher from Ambler, Pa., came home from work one day and said to her husband, “Honey, guess what? I landed that summer teaching position I wanted!” “Wow, congratulations!” he replied. “I know how hard you worked to get that job. I am so happy for you! You must be really excited.” The way Lisa’s husband reacted to her good news was also good news for their marriage, which, more than 20 years later, is still going strong; such positive responses turn out to be vital to the longevity of a relationship....

An ancient, 3-foot-tall (0.9 meters) human whose diminutive stature has earned it the nickname “hobbit” has puzzled evolutionary scientists since its little bones were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores. Some have suggested the individual was a Homo sapiens with some miniaturizing disorder. Now, teeth from the hobbit suggest it belonged to a unique species rather than a modern human with a growth disorder. The new research also suggests hobbits may share a direct ancestor with modern humans....

Many studies over the past decade have pointed to pesticides as a potential cause of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition that impairs motor function and afflicts a million Americans. Yet scientists have not had a good idea of how these chemicals harm the brain. A recent study suggests a possible answer: pesticides may inhibit a biochemical pathway that normally protects dopaminergic neurons, the brain cells selectively attacked by the disease. Preliminary research also indicates that this pathway plays a role in Parkinson’s even when pesticides are not involved, providing an exciting new target for drug development....

Between 1938 and 1942, while the U.S. was preoccupied with the end of the Great Depression and its entry into World War II, researchers in Boston were busy embarking on a study of adolescent boys and their family relationships. Some 60 years later, different researchers followed up with the participants and found that those raised in warmer family environments were more securely attached to their partners in the later years of life—a testament to the enduring influence of early childhood experiences....

With the tip of her syringe, Brandi pokes at a gray lump of heroin in a spoon. It’s a new variety of the drug that has shown up on the market in the past few days, and Brandi likes it. “I feel this more, I feel more of the pain resistance,” she says. Once it has dissolved into a liquid, she injects it into her arm, then uses a fresh needle to inject the skinny arm of another woman....

People are more likely to lend a hand to a perfect stranger if they have benefited from such kindness in the past. Now scientists have discovered that rodents show this behavior, too. A research team at the University of Bern in Switzerland trained rats to deliver food for one another by pulling a stick. Then they divided the animals into two groups: some rats received food from other animals, whereas others did not....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Rockefellers, who made their vast fortune on oil, and other philanthropies and high-wealth individuals on Monday will announce pledges to divest a total of $50 billion from fossil fuel investments. The Global Divest-Invest coalition will announce new pledges and members one day before 120 heads of state address the United Nations on how their countries will contribute to a global effort to halt a dangerous rise in temperatures....

More than 2.5 billion plastic bottles—partially made from plants—are already in use around the world in a bid to replace petroleum as the fundamental building block of everyday plastics. The so-called PlantBottle from the Coca-Cola Co. is made by converting sugars from sugarcane farmed in Brazil into the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic commonly used in the ubiquitous clear bottles for various beverages. Fully recyclable, the bottles debuted at the 2009 U....

A giant ring around Saturn is even larger than thought, spanning an area of space nearly 7,000 times larger than Saturn itself, researchers say. “We knew it was the biggest ring, but know we find it’s even bigger than we thought, new and improved,” the study’s lead author, Douglas Hamilton, a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, told Space.com. The immense ring was discovered around Saturn in 2009....

Alan Turing, the mathematician who was among the founders of computer science, showed in 1936 that it is impossible to devise an algorithm to prove that any given program will always run to completion. The essence of his argument was that such an algorithm can always trip up if it analyzes itself and finds that it is unable to stop. “It leads to a logical paradox,” remarks David Schmidt, professor of computer science at Kansas State University....

Prominent House Democrats and environmental groups are pressuring the Obama administration to overturn a special rule on polar bears from the Bush administration – part of an effort to provide another federal tool for addressing climate change and curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The Interior Department has until Saturday to throw out the contested polar bear rule, a move that could open the door to scrutinizing the potential emissions of greenhouse gases of a wide range of projects – from power plant proposals to new housing developments and interstate highway expansions – as threats to polar-bear habitat....

For many people of a certain age, the original 1980s PBS series Cosmos was a major event—a stunning love letter to astronomy that provided a novel way of thinking about ourselves and our place in the universe. Neuroscientist David Eagleman counts himself among those moved by Cosmos. He sees it as a model for his ambitious PBS series, The Brain with David Eagleman, a six-hour exploration of what has been called the most complex object in the known universe, the gelatinous mass that, somehow, makes us who we are....

Most of us do not give our sense of smell a passing thought unless there are cookies in the oven or flowers in bloom. But scientists are probing this underappreciated sense to better comprehend the workings of our brains, from memory formation to Alzheimer’s disease. Some of the latest findings: Smell and memory are intimately related—just think about how suddenly a familiar scent can whisk you into the past. Now a new study shows that smell can help the brain encode memories, too....

Juliano Pinto, a 29-year-old paraplegic, kicked off the 2014 World Cup in São Paulo with a robotic exoskeleton suit that he wore and controlled with his mind. The event was broadcast internationally and served as a symbol of the exciting possibilities of brain-controlled machines. Over the last few decades research into brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), which allow direct communication between the brain and an external device such a computer or prosthetic, has skyrocketed....

Astronomers are scrambling to keep a rapidly approaching date with destiny—a chance to gaze farther than ever before into the universe’s hidden depths. After decades of development, the nearly $9-billion James Webb Space Telescope is set for launch from French Guiana in spring 2019. Built in cooperation with the European and Canadian space agencies, Webb is NASA’s biggest, costliest and most powerful observatory yet, boasting a 6.5-meter primary mirror that will be the largest ever flown in space....

In the aftermath of disasters, drones have already been used to map the destruction and help rescuers find possible survivors. Now a new system could take this to the next level, automatically analyzing drone footage to determine whether the people spotted are still alive. “We’re using computer vision, and what we’re looking for are very small changes that are associated with movement—that rhythmic movement of breathing,” says Javaan Chahl, a sensor systems researcher at the University of South Australia and senior author of a study describing the process, published last October in Remote Sensing....

A new study suggests some of Antarctica’s ice sheet grows from the bottom up, adding a new wrinkle to efforts to predict how the continent’s glaciers will respond to climate change. Radar images show that water under the base of the ice sheet refreezes into ice, creating a new bottom layer that accounts for up to half the total thickness of the ice sheet in some locations. That base layer can warp and lift the ice above it, which is formed by snow deposited on the ice sheet’s surface....

Infusing building materials with living microorganisms has already lent inanimate objects new powers. Self-healing concrete, for example, uses bacteria or fungi to fix its own cracks. Now researchers have developed a living substance that can transform from a gooey sand mixture into a solid brick—and then help build more copies of itself. Proponents say it could be used to make a building material that requires relatively few resources and absorbs greenhouse gases instead of releasing them....