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Last June Rodolphe Devillers stood on the Canadian parliament floor in Ottawa and gave the ministers there a stark warning. Devillers, a geography professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, told them they should not allow industry to operate inside marine protected areas (MPAs), parcels set aside to safeguard ocean life. If the government continued to issue lax restrictions inside the nation’s reserves, he said, “the Canadian MPA network is unlikely to bring the benefits the government and Canadians expect....

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Fog and heavy snow mean passengers on a Russian ship stranded in Antarctica for over a week are likely to ring in the New Year trapped in the ice, as a rescue helicopter on a nearby Chinese ship waits for the weather to clear.The helicopter on board the Snow Dragon will be used after an Australian icebreaker on Monday failed to reach the trapped Akademik Shokalskiy, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said on Tuesday....

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the final rollback of Obama-era methane rules during a trip yesterday to Pittsburgh. The move marked the culmination of a 3 ½-year struggle by the Trump administration to undo emissions rules established at the end of President Obama’s second term. That removal came despite their being supported by a significant segment of the oil and gas industry. “Today’s regulatory changes remove redundant paperwork, align with the Clean Air Act, and allow companies the flexibility to satisfy leak-control requirements by complying with equivalent state rules,” Wheeler told a local audience, according to remarks provided from EPA after the event....

A US environmental group has been awarded tens of millions of dollars to develop a new satellite to help track—and ultimately, reduce—emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas facilities around the world. If the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) succeeds at launching its probe, it could be the first environmental group to send its own satellite into space. The group’s efforts are being funded through the Audacious Project, a joint effort of the non-profit group TED and philanthropic organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation....

In July 2015, my husband and I were crammed into a stuffy minivan with 12 others, climbing out of Lima’s coastal mist into the sun-filled mountains thousands of feet above. After hours of dust clouds and dizzying hairpin turns, our destination appeared below—the remote Andean village of San Juan de Collata, Peru. It was a scattering of adobe houses with no running water, no sewage, and electricity for only a couple of homes....

Could a person harness the power of dark energy—the mysterious and pervasive force suspected of speeding the universe’s expansion—to block bullets, hurl adversaries around like rag dolls, and create small gravitational vortices out of thin air using nothing more than thoughts? The short answer: no. That is, unless that person exists in the intricate cyber universe created by the makers of the video games Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, the latter of which drops on January 26....

In the wake of the bombing in Oslo and the shooting on Utoya Island in Norway, the spotlight has focused on confessed perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik. What drove the Norwegian citizen with extremist right-wing views to these mass killings? Although one of the terrorist’s driving motives was anti-immigrant sentiment, he also killed fellow Norwegians belonging to his own ethnic group. Why do human beings develop this kind of prejudice, and what makes it sometimes erupt into violence?...

The ongoing WikiLeaks exposé not only circulated hundreds of thousands of secretive government documents, it has also swiftly prompted changes to the system designed to share access to them. On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department cut off a military computer network’s access to its files, dramatically curtailing data sharing intended to help thwart future disasters like the September 11 terrorist attacks. In response to the leaks, the State Department announced it would cut access to its database of embassy cables via the U....

Thousands of scientists worldwide tap into CERN’s computer networks each day in their quest to better understand the fundamental structure of the universe. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones who want a piece of this vast pool of computing power, which serves the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. The hundreds of thousands of computers in CERN’s grid are also a prime target for hackers who want to hijack those resources to make money or attack other computer systems....

By Katharine SandersonAerosols’ complicated influence on our climate just got more threatening: they could make methane a more potent greenhouse gas than previously realized, say climate modellers.Drew Shindell, at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, and colleagues ran a range of computerized models to show that methane’s global warming potential is greater when combined with aerosols – atmospheric particles such as dust, sea salt, sulphates and black carbon.The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol assume methane to be, tonne-for-tonne, 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet....

Contact Sport: A Story of Champions, Airwaves, and a One-Day Race around the World by J. K. George Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2016 (($22.95)) Huddled in nylon tents crammed with radio equipment, screens and knobs, 59 two-person teams spread across the wilderness of eastern Massachusetts raced to make radio contact with as many people as they could in 24 hours. These were the contenders of the 2014 World Radiosport Team Championship, the pinnacle event of the surprisingly thrilling world of competitive ham radio....

Key concepts Physics Engineering Civil engineering Water Introduction Irrigation, the artificial application of water to crops, has been used by humans for thousands of years. Ancient civilizations built complex irrigation systems without the aid of modern technology or construction equipment. Can you design a model irrigation system using simple household materials? Try this project to find out! Background Irrigation systems can be vital for growing crops in areas that do not otherwise receive enough rainfall to sustain them....

During a routine patrol outside a small village in eastern Iraq, a four-vehicle convoy was suddenly blasted with an improvised explosive device (IED). Michael (not his real name), a 22-year-old combat medic who was riding in one of the vehicles, lost consciousness for several moments. As he regained his senses, he saw that the gunner had been thrown from the turret. Michael immediately scrambled out of the mangled vehicle and began to apply first aid....

A US survey of almost 250 chemicals used in fracking has identified potentially harmful compounds and exposed a lack of information about them that is hampering efforts to understand fracking’s environmental impact. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, involves pumping high-pressure water into shale formations kilometres beneath the ground to break the formations apart, releasing the gas and oil they contain. In the US, fracking operations have regenerated the domestic oil and gas industry, boosting production and driving down energy prices....

A mass-producible, toadstool-shaped piece of glass may be just the thing for developing future technologies that harness quantum weirdness. Researchers have managed to control the flow of light through such toadstools by touching atoms to them, demonstrating that the devices could serve as nodes of a quantum network in which information is traded between atoms and light. Schemes based on quantum strangeness promise the eventual development of extremely powerful computers or encryption systems, once researchers figure out the best way to manipulate the fussy quantum states of matter and light....

Throughout most of my 20s I was constantly late—to work, appointments, parties, whatever. People usually cut me slack for it, and I just chalked up my god-awful time management to being overly busy. Now that I’m older, wiser and even busier, I know my lateness was less about a packed schedule and more about a cloudy, unorganized mind. We’ve all heard (and probably failed at) tried-and-true “time management” tips, such as when to reply to e-mails and how to structure a to-do list....

Neuroscientist Michael Heneka knows that radical ideas require convincing data. In 2010, very few colleagues shared his belief that the brain’s immune system has a crucial role in dementia. So in May of that year, when a batch of new results provided the strongest evidence he had yet seen for his theory, he wanted to be excited, but instead felt nervous. He and his team had eliminated a key inflammation gene from a strain of mouse that usually develops symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease....

Why fewer women than men seek tenure-track jobs in science, surprising findings about Mercury from the MESSENGER spacecraft, and some new thinking about memory are among the issues addressed in the Advances section of Scientific American’s June issue. For readers interested in learning more about any of these developments, a selected list of further resources follows below. – Rose Eveleth The Motherhood Gap: Williams and Ceci’s paper in the Proceedings of the Nataional Academy of Sciences suggested that discrimination was less responsible than people thought for low levels of women in science....

PASADENA, Calif.—Jupiter’s stripes are more than skin deep, according to observations by NASA’s Juno probe, which has revealed many new surprises about the Jovian giant. Juno arrived at the Jupiter system in July. On Aug. 27, the probe made a close flyby of the planet, during which, the science team was supposed to calibrate Juno’s instruments and get familiar with the intense environment around Jupiter, according to Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton....

Key Concepts Mathematics Physics Navigation Programming Space Introduction How do scientists and engineers control robots that drive around other planets millions of miles away? It’s nowhere near as easy as driving a toy remote-control car here on Earth. In this activity you will experience some of the challenges you face when driving a “robot” that you can’t see! Background The U.S. has landed four robotic rovers on Mars: Sojourner in 1997, Spirit and Opportunity in 2004, and Curiosity in 2012....