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After about 15 years of diving at the White Sea Biological Station in Russia, marine biologist Alexander Semenov has learned more than most about which jellyfish stings are the worst. If you touch the egg-yolk jellyfish by accident, for example, it is not too bad, he says. And though you should try and stay out of the way of a lion’s mane jellyfish, if you see a glimmer of sun illuminate even one of the jelly’s “mane” of up to 150 threadlike tentacles in front of you, it is too late....

Whooping cough, measles, mumps. These are the diseases that preyed on our parents’ and grandparents’ generations and that we thought were fading from existence. In fact, all three diseases have seen a resurgence in the past decade. In 2017 Minnesota suffered a measles outbreak: in a Somali-American community with previously high vaccination rates, concerns about autism led parents to refuse the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, and measles spread among the unvaccinated....

In science, as in life, every good story needs conflict. Take, for example, the struggle between faceless corporations or corrupt scientists and the lone champion whose mission it is to bring their shady dealings to light. This storyline is a staple of movies and television shows (and many times social media and Web sites), and tends to paint academic and industry collaborations through a lens of conspiracy. It makes for great entertainment, but is that really what happens?...

Recycling has made huge gains in the last couple decades. The rate of municipal waste that gets recycled more than doubled in 2010 to 34 percent from 16 percent in 1990, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Still, about half of the nation’s 225 million metric tons of annual trash gets the “one and done” treatment. Even though virtually every object contains recyclable materials, much of our waste ends up being incinerated or dumped in a landfill....

Several years ago, I received a tiny plastic test tube in my mailbox, so naturally, I spit in it and put it back in the mail. No, this was not an elaborate practical joke, I was actually submitting my DNA to a testing service called 23andMe. A few weeks later, I received a report telling me all about myself, based on what they found in my genes that were contained in that saliva I put in the mail....

I’ve also had exchanges with two quantum-computing experts with distinct perspectives on the technology’s prospects. One is computer scientist Scott Aaronson, who has, as I once put it, “one of the highest intelligence/pretension ratios I’ve ever encountered.” Not to embarrass him further, but I see Aaronson as the conscience of quantum computing, someone who helps keep the field honest. The other expert is physicist Terry Rudolph. He is a co-author, the “R,” of the PBR theorem, which, along with its better-known predecessor, Bell’s theorem, lays bare the peculiarities of quantum behavior....

Late on the night of July 4th, NASA team members spent a suspenseful 35 minutes watching as the spacecraft Juno attempted to enter the region around the gas giant planet Jupiter, using a risky maneuver known as an orbital insertion. The main goal of this mission is to learn more about the origin and evolution of Jupiter, which will ultimately improve our understanding of how our entire solar system came to be....

By Kate Kelland A little-known bacterial disease may be killing as many people worldwide as measles, scientists said on Monday, while a mosquito-borne virus known as Zika is also raising global alarm. The spread of Ebola in West Africa last year shows how poorly-understood diseases can emerge and grow rapidly while researchers race to design and conduct the scientific studies needed to combat them. Researchers in the journal Nature Microbiology called for a bacterial infection called meliodosis, which is resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, to be given a higher priority by international health organizations and policy makers....

The discovery of “significant amounts” of water in moon rock samples collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts is challenging a longstanding theory about how the moon formed, scientists say. Since the Apollo era, scientists have thought the moon came to be after a Mars-size object smashed into Earth early in the planet’s history, generating a ring of debris that slowly coalesced over millions of years. That process, scientists have said, should have flung away the water-forming element hydrogen into space....

By Ernest Scheyder and Terray Sylvester CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters in North Dakota celebrated after the federal government ruled against a controversial pipeline project on Sunday, even though many recognized that the fight is likely to continue into next year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it rejected an application to allow the Dakota Access Pipeline to tunnel under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River....

By Geoff BrumfielAstronomers have watched the violent death of what was probably the most massive star ever detected. The supernova explosion, which lasted for months, is thought to have generated more than 50 Suns’ worth (10^32 kilograms) of different elements, which may one day go on to make new solar systems.The explosion – dubbed SN2007bi – was spotted as part of a digital survey to hunt for supernovae at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California....

This spring’s emergence of periodical cicadas in the eastern U.S. will make more than a buzz. Their bodies—which will number in the billions—will also create an unparalleled food fest for legions of small would-be predators, including many birds and mammals. But some animals may benefit more than others, and any boost predator populations get from the coming buffet of winged insects will likely be short-lived, researchers say. Tiny chickadees and mice have been known to wrestle these chunky bugs for a quick snack....

The Colorado River is a lifeline. It flows from the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming through five other U.S. states, 11 U.S. national parks and two Mexican states on a 1,450-mile-long journey that supplies water to 40 million people, supports uncounted wildlife and irrigates more than five million acres of farmland. And the river is endangered. Not only are humans drawing unsustainable amounts of water from this source, but abnormally low precipitation and hot, dry conditions have been shrinking it for years—an alarming trend that is likely to worsen as climate change takes its toll....

Dairy farmers living in Central Europe around 7,500 years ago may have been the first human adults to drink cow’s milk—at least comfortably. Integrating genetic and archaeological data, Mark Thomas and colleagues at University College London were able to trace down the first evidence of lactase—the enzyme that allows us to digest the complex milk sugar lactose—persisting beyond the weaning years into adulthood to “exactly when you see the beginning of Linearbandkeramik culture [considered the first Neolithic society in Europe],” Thomas says....

First of a three-part series. Last November, the Air Force rolled out the federal government’s first fleet of plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles. Parked at Los Angeles Air Force Base (LA AFB) in El Segundo, Calif., about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, the 42-vehicle fleet features 13 Nissan Leafs as well as Ford F-Series pickup trucks and a 12-passenger van among other electrified vehicles. For the Department of Defense, which manages more than 200,000 nontactical vehicles, switching to electric vehicles could provide serious fuel cost savings....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. If you get your news from social media, as most Americans do, you are exposed to a daily dose of hoaxes, rumors, conspiracy theories and misleading news. When it’s all mixed in with reliable information from honest sources, the truth can be very hard to discern. In fact, my research team’s analysis of data from Columbia University’s Emergent rumor tracker suggests that this misinformation is just as likely to go viral as reliable information....

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration is implementing a new hiring protocol that could make it significantly harder for foreign scientists to find jobs and research opportunities at the agency, according to interviews and newly obtained documents. The FDA recently began directing hiring managers not to extend any employment offers — including for fellowship and contractor positions — to any individual who has not lived in the U.S. for at least three of the five previous years, according to briefing materials shared with STAT that have been presented to some agency employees....

To spread and regenerate, an important marine plant depends on animals to eat its seeds and poop them out around the ocean, according to recent research. Seeds from eelgrass, a type of marine grass found around the world, can survive and germinate after being eaten by three types of fish, one turtle and one type of bird, said Sarah Sumoski, a researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and co-author of a study published recently in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series....

Did you know that eating soup could prevent obesity, and consuming grapes and blueberries may improve college students’ cognitive function? These two findings come from some of the latest research on nutrition science. But the results are also from a subset of studies backed by food manufacturers. A paper published December 16 in PLOS ONE reports that more than 13 percent of peer-reviewed studies in 10 of the top nutrition science journals had connections to the food industry—and of those, more than half reported findings favorable to business interests....

Winter is officially over, at least in the meteorological sense. Just don’t tell Washington, D.C. residents who spent yesterday shoveling out their cars. And come to think of it, don’t tell West Coast residents who just dealt with the winter that wasn’t. Let’s start with the West where balmy temperatures and low snow were the norm. Ski areas in the Sierra Nevada were dealing with February slush as temperatures climbed into the 60s at times....