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It seems like something out of a Robert Ludlum spy novel. Someone tries to coerce you into revealing your computer security passwords. You might be tempted to give in, but it is impossible for you to reveal your authentication credentials. You do not actually know them because they are safely buried deep within your subconscious. Sounds a bit extreme just to make sure no one can log on to your laptop or smartphone, but a team of researchers from Stanford and Northwestern universities as well as SRI International is nonetheless experimenting at the computer-, cognitive- and neuroscience intersection to combat identity theft and shore up cyber security—by taking advantage of the human brain’s innate abilities to learn and recognize patterns....

France, one of the world’s leaders in nuclear energy production, plans to draw down nuclear’s share of electricity generation from 75 to 50 percent by 2025—giving itself a 10-year time frame equivalent to the complete shutdown now ongoing in Germany. Which reactors are to be disconnected is not specifically mentioned. “Finally!” gasped French headlines last week. After months of national debate—of amended drafting bills and a one-year parliamentary discussion interspersed with joint committee reports and opposition intransigence—the nation approved an Energy Transition Law that many are now calling historic in scope and ambition....

As the moments tick away before tonight’s scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station (ISS), another countdown is underway: Only a handful of launches remain before the shuttle program’s scheduled retirement in 2010. When President-elect Barack Obama takes office two months from now, he and his aides will need to decide quickly whether or not to hold to that date, a determination that will have major implications for the future of U....

What does SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, look like? This simple question does not have a simple answer. SARS-CoV-2 is very small, and seeing it requires specialized scientific techniques. Electron microscopy (EM) can reveal its general size and shape. We can see that the virions are spherical or ellipsoidal, with “crowns” of spikes on their surfaces. Careful cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) studies of many copies of the virion can reveal more precise measurements of the virus and its larger pieces....

Two months later, the results were in: 10,000 students from 120 countries embraced the joy of coding through the course. Students who had never before attempted to code were implementing projects in Python, including tools to model dynamics of the COVID pandemic, analyze DNA, conduct sentiment analysis from Twitter and create a choose-your-own-adventure film. A handful of students kick-started new careers in computer science, and several became professional teachers. A student from Italy called it, “the most enjoyable, mentally stimulating and rewarding experience I have ever encountered....

PROFILE NAME Joel Berger TITLE Wildlife biologist, University of Montana and Wildlife Conservation Society LOCATION Missoula, Mont., and Bronx, N.Y. There are around 14 million domestic yaks in the world, but nobody knows how many wild yaks there are. They’re a vulnerable species. The Tibetan Himalayan region, their home, has tens of thousands of glaciers, and as the snow and the ice melt, we’re not sure what it’s going to do to yaks....

Pain in infants is heartbreaking for new parents, and extremely difficult to treat effectively—if at all. Every year an estimated 15 million babies are born prematurely, most of whom will then undergo numerous lifesaving but painful procedures, such as heel pricking or insertion of a thin tube known as a cannula to deliver fluids or medicine. Preterm babies in the intensive care unit are subjected to an average of 11 such “skin-breaking” procedures per day, but analgesia is only used just over one third of the time....

Rising temperatures around the world are a compelling argument for nuclear energy, industry advocates say. However, they acknowledge that existing nuclear energy technologies—and the corresponding policies—aren’t up to the job. “While nuclear can be a very large share of global demand and low carbon supply, we’re not going to do it, I believe, on the current generation of technology,” said Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force. “My concern is these things take just too bloody long to build....

The discovery of a new type of cell could fundamentally alter how cystic fibrosis researchers seek a cure for the often-fatal hereditary disease. A paper published Wednesday in Nature describes how an ongoing cellular mapping project helped scientists identify this rare cell type, which appears to play a key role in managing rehydration and pH balance—huge issues for cystic fibrosis patients. A second paper in the same journal offers a similar finding....

For centuries, fishers in Narrangansett, R.I., have plied the waters of the northwestern Atlantic for herring—small, schooling fish that are also a staple for ocean predators. But as climate change warms the world’s seas, the herring these fishers rely on are vanishing at the southern end of their range and turning up more often at its northern edges. This situation is playing out in ocean waters the world over: concentrations of marine animal populations have been shifting away from the equator and toward the poles during the course of the past century, according to one of the most comprehensive analyses of marine species distributions to date....

That discovery is consistent with a trend observed by the environmental group for the climate submissions — known as intended nationally determined contributions, or INDCs — of a dozen forest-centric countries ahead of key U.N. climate change negotiations in Paris beginning this month. “The DRC is a very poor country, and it has a lot of difficulties in terms of making plans and implementing them, but they did a good job in their INDC,” said Doug Boucher, director of UCS’s Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative....

CLIMATEWIRE | The head of the Forest Service says in a new report that climate change is making prescribed fire increasingly dangerous even as the controlled burns remain essential for thinning the nation’s forests to prevent wildfire catastrophes. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore issued the warning Tuesday in a detailed report examining how a prescribed fire in northern New Mexico grew out of control this spring and became the largest wildfire in state history, consuming an area nearly twice the size of New York City....

The Hoh Tribe consists of 28 homes along a strip of road on the edge of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Like in many rural parts of the U.S., getting online here has been a constant struggle. A few homes have wired Internet connectivity, but the download speeds are incredibly slow—barely enough to watch a YouTube video. Others rely on patchy cellular service. For years, community members have pleaded with telecom companies to provide their tribe with better Internet service....

Researchers in Finland have transformed rice starch into a temporally stable, optically transparent, biodegradable plastic with a high degree of mechanical strength and good thermal resistance. This important step towards bioplastics made from simple and sustainable resources has potential applications in food packaging and biomedical materials. Starch is a polysaccharide consisting of two components: a linear glucose polymer called amylose and a highly branched glucose polymer called amylopectin. Most green plants store their energy as starch and it is present in large quantities in grains such as maize, wheat and rice, in addition to tubers like potatoes....

On a February day 15 years ago Paul Bradford took himself to a local emergency room. Bradford felt agitated and confused; he and his wife thought he needed professional help. To his surprise, two large men came into the waiting room, grabbed him by the arms and hustled him into a treatment room. Petrified, Bradford asked his wife to stay with him, but he says the security guards forced her out, tied him to a gurney and gave him a sedative that knocked him out for 18 hours....

The United States is not ready to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic, the head of the Coast Guard said yesterday. The warning comes as Congress prepares to open up more drilling in a region quickly being transformed by climate change. Adm. Paul Zukunft said that the challenges of cleaning up the BP PLC Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico—where the conditions were much more favorable—show the extreme difficulty of Arctic oil spill recovery....

By Brian Switek of Nature magazine It usually takes two snakes — a female and a male — to make a litter of baby copperheads. But research now shows that copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) and their venomous cousins cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus) don’t always require a partner to establish the next generation. These vipers are capable of virgin births. For some vertebrates, parthenogenesis — asexual reproduction in which embryos develop without fertilization — is the norm....

The CDC’s Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, familiarly known as the MMWR, has been around for nearly a century, and is sacrosanct in the public health community. Loaded with reliable, timely data and analyses and authored by the world’s top scientists, it is required reading, especially during a pandemic. To meddle with, delay or politicize these reports would be a form of scientific blasphemy as well as a breach of public trust that could undermine the nation’s efforts to fight the coronavirus....

Imagine being told you have cancer or a potentially dangerous aneurysm—and then being told the best course of action might be to do nothing. This approach, dubbed “watchful waiting,” is the reality for an increasing number of patients, thanks to powerful new scanning tools. Yet coping with such uncertainty is difficult for most people. “As the technology gets better and better, we’re picking up more of these conditions way earlier than the disease would be symptomatic or dangerous,” says Shelley Hwang, a breast surgeon at Duke University Medical Center, whose practice includes some women who choose surveillance for a precancerous but risky breast condition....

In the aftermath of hurricane Harvey, chemicals stored at a plant in Crosby, near Houston, US, have begun to ignite. Experts are warning that future fires and explosions are extremely likely. How did this happen and what can be done to contain the situation? What does the Arkema chemical plant manufacture? The plant makes organic peroxides. These are used for the production of various chemicals – from pharmaceuticals to building materials – and as catalysts for industrial processes such as the manufacture of polymers and resins....