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The silver lining of the global economic crisis may be a greener China this year, but the long-term forecast is less clear. China claims it met its five-year plan’s pollution targets for the first time in 2008, as domestic energy demands dipped and global demand for Chinese manufactured goods slumped. Economists are forecasting weaker gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2009, suggesting China will reduce its sulfur dioxide and other industrial pollutants further....

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan declared its tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to be in cold shutdown on Friday, taking a major step to resolving the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years but some critics questioned whether the plant was really under control. The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked on March 11 by a huge earthquake and a towering tsunami which knocked out its cooling systems, triggering meltdowns, radiation leaks and mass evacuations....

The recent claim for a detection of the molecule phosphine in the Venusian midlatitude cloud layers has brought the idea of chemical biosignatures back to the forefront of attention in our efforts to find signs of life elsewhere in the universe. Phosphine, the argument goes, is not generally expected to be produced, or to survive for very long, in the abiotic (nonliving) chemistry anticipated for this part of Venus’s environment. But on Earth phosphine is associated with organic matter (think swamp gas or sewage) and could be argued to be a biomarker or biosignature molecule of certain extreme organisms that might have cousins or convergently evolved equivalents lurking in the sulfuric acid clouds on Venus....

There is no doubt big-time troublemakers lurk out there in the cosmos. We know that blitzkrieging asteroids and comets can make for a bad day here on Earth because our planet has been on the receiving end of many long-ago scurrilous intruders, and has the pockmarks to prove it. There was also the recent and loud wake-up call when an incoming space rock detonated in the skies near Chelyabinsk, Russia, in early 2013, causing significant injuries and property damage....

The Department of Defense wants to develop spy satellites that can detect a military force mobilizing halfway around the world, enabling it to immediately assess possible threats to national security. An unmanned surveillance aircraft packed into the nose of a missile would be launched over suspicious areas to gather more intelligence; if the threat were confirmed, it would be replaced by another aircraft that could perform low-flying surveillance for up to five years without returning to Earth to refuel....

Tasting words, smelling shapes and other synesthetic experiences can have their advantages. The condition has long been linked to creativity—as the lists of famous artists, writers and musicians with synesthesia would suggest—and the strange sensory overlaps may also boost memory. All of which leads many nonsynesthetes to wonder whether they could learn to see sound and taste letters. There are several “artificial” approaches to synesthesia—sensory deprivation or psychedelic drugs, for instance, are purported to achieve a similar effect—but in most “natural” cases there is clearly a genetic component....

NASA plans to go back to the moon—but unlike the Apollo missions of a half-century ago, the agency’s Artemis program is designed to send humans on longer-duration journeys, to land at the lunar south pole, and potentially even to build and populate a base there. The first crewed landing could take place as early as the mid-2020s. Last December the space agency announced the 18 astronauts who are working to make Artemis a reality; Jessica Watkins, who joined the astronaut corps in 2017, is among them....

The Trump administration cleared the way Monday to immediately use outpatient surgery centers, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, hotels and even dormitories as makeshift hospitals, health care centers or quarantine sites during the coronavirus crisis. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it is temporarily waiving a range of rules, thereby allowing doctors to care for more patients. Hospitals and health systems overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients will be able to transfer people with other medical needs to the nation’s 5,000 outpatient surgery centers, about half of which are affiliated with hospitals....

NATO’s role in maintaining security in Europe has never been more critical following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That includes protecting member nations from climate change, according to new analysis from the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In the fund’s latest installment of a series of reports called “NATO in a New Era: Global Shifts, Global Challenges,” Jamie Shea, NATO’s former deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, said member states must not lose sight of security issues that go beyond political and physical borders....

The Advances news section in April’s issue of Scientific American included stories on digital textbooks, the promise of using gene therapy to fight blindness and how fragile orchids survive. To learn more about any of the stories, follow these links. The Mind Recovery Act The National Alzheimer’s Project Act is available at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Web site. You can also read more about the Case Western study on a cancer drug that could reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms on ScientificAmerican....

They look like ordinary baby rhesus macaques, but Hex, Roku and Chimero are the world’s first chimeric monkeys, each with cells from the genomes of as many as six rhesus monkeys. Until now research on so-called chimeric animals, or those that have cells with different genomes, has been limited to mice; a recent procedure produced mice using cells from two dads. The researchers turned to monkeys for more insight into the capabilities of embryonic stem cells....

Imagine that you are a judge presiding over the trial of a man named Bill, accused of a grisly murder. The physical evidence is overwhelming, and witnesses have yielded damning testimony. There seems to be no reasonable doubt that Bill committed the murder. Suddenly, the defense asks if it can present images of Bill’s brain, produced by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Bill’s attorneys want to introduce the pictures as evidence that their client has a brain abnormality....

A new study finds that neural stem cells may be able to save dying brain cells without transforming into new brain tissue, at least in rodents. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, report that stem cells rejuvenated the learning and memory abilities of mice engineered to lose neurons in a way that simulated the aftermath of Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and other brain injuries. Researchers expect stem cells to transform into replacement tissue capable of replacing damaged cells....

The Zika virus is causally linked to microcephaly, the birth defect that leads to abnormally small head size in infants, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The agency said it has not found any definitive new evidence but has weighed the accumulating data connecting the two conditions and concluded that it was solid enough to call causative. The CDC pointed to compelling evidence from Brazil that highlights a suspicious temporal relationship between pregnant mothers becoming infected with the virus and their babies being born with microcephaly or other serious brain abnormalities....

By Jo Marchant of Nature magazineA DNA analysis of ancient storage jars suggests that Greek sailors traded a wide range of foods–not just wine, as many historians have assumed. The study, in press at the Journal of Archaeological Science, finds evidence in nine jars taken from Mediterranean shipwrecks of vegetables, herbs and nuts. The researchers say DNA testing of underwater artifacts from different time periods could help to reveal how such complex markets developed across the Mediterranean....

Scientists have known for more than 70 years that the one surefire way to extend the lives of animals was to cut calories by an average of 30 to 40 percent. The question was: Why? Now a new study begins to unravel the mystery and the mechanism by which reducing food intake protects cells against aging and age-related diseases. Researchers report in the journal Cell that the phenomenon is likely linked to two enzymes—SIRT3 and SIRT4—in mitochondria (the cell’s powerhouse that, among other tasks, converts nutrients to energy)....

Imagine two aspiring entrepreneurs: Meg and Jen. They are equally capable and well-connected, and they are working on equally promising startup ideas. In fact, imagine that Meg and Jen differ in just one respect: Meg is thinking about what a good fallback job would be and how she plans to pursue it if her current startup fails while Jen is not. Who do you think will work harder and in turn, have a better chance of success: Meg or Jen?...

The idea that suicide is caused by psychological pain may seem self-evident, but recognizing this fact was once a departure for psychiatry. Depression and other psychiatric disorders—which are often associated with suicide—are diagnoses, and diagnoses are the coin of psychiatry’s realm. But psychological pain is an experience, one that may not be connected to any diagnosis. The late psychologist Edwin Shneidman, who founded the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center in the 1950s, rejected the diagnosis-based medical model of suicidal behavior....

The Commerce Department unveiled the first 77 “smart grid” standards today aimed at removing a major barrier to the implementation of digital grid technologies. The National Institute of Standards and Technology draft report highlights 31 standards with “relevance” to smart-grid development and another 46 standards as “potentially” applicable to the smart grid. “Central to this report is cybersecurity,” Secretary Gary Locke said at the GridWeek conference in Washington, D.C. “We need to do it right, but we cannot take forever because everything else depends on the foundation of our cybersecurity efforts....

The year 2005 is the midpoint of a decade that spans three unique, important transitions in the history of humankind. Before 2000, young people always outnumbered old people. From 2000 forward, old people will outnumber young people. Until approximately 2007, rural people will have always outnumbered urban people. From approximately 2007 forward, urban people will outnumber rural people. From 2003 on, the median woman worldwide had, and will continue to have, too few or just enough children during her lifetime to replace herself and the father in the following generation....