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Standard vaccines to prevent infectious diseases consist of killed or weakened pathogens or proteins from those microorganisms. Vaccines that treat cancer also rely on proteins. In contrast, a new kind of vaccine, which is poised to make major inroads in medicine, consists of genes. Genomic vaccines promise to offer many advantages, including fast manufacture when a virus, such as Zika or Ebola, suddenly becomes more virulent or widespread. They have been decades in the making, but dozens have now entered clinical trials....

As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) weighs a proposal to raise the retirement age of commercial airline pilots from 60 to 65 years old, a new report has been released showing that experience compensates for age when it comes to flying. Researchers studied the performance of 118 noncommercial pilots from 40 to 69 years of age during flight simulation exercises (in a cockpit modeled after a single-engine plane) for three years....

Visit the grocery store on an empty stomach, and you will probably come home with a few things you had not planned to buy. But hunger pangs are not the only culprit behind impulse purchases. The location of store displays also influences our shopping choices—and may make or break some healthy eating habits. The checkout area is a particular hotspot for junk food. Studies have found that the products most commonly found there are sugary and salty snacks—and a few studies have suggested that simply swapping in healthier options can shift customer behavior....

The Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina finally has solid evidence that the most energetic particles in nature come from sources outside the Milky Way. Scientists have suspected this for decades, but weren’t able to confirm it—until now. “For the first time, we have proof that the highest-energy cosmic rays are of extragalactic origin,” says Alan Watson, a UK astronomer and co-founder of the observatory. The result comes as a relief to the researchers, after previous claims regarding their origin made ten years ago by the Pierre Auger Collaboration subsequently turned out to be premature....

Our abilities to see things that appear fleetingly or in cluttered environments or outside our focus of attention are all determined by a single perceptual capacity trait that varies among people, a new study suggests. Researchers say these findings could one day help scientifically predict an individual’s performance in jobs that rely on strong observational skills. Psychologists Joshua Eayrs and Nilli Lavie of University College London tested participants on a range of visual tasks....

“Jeffrey D. Sachs is a great man, doing great things for people around the world,” began a note from Trey Strawn of Winter Springs, Fla. “His battle against poverty is inspiring. ‘Welfare States, beyond Ideology’ [Sustainable Developments], however, is unscientific, biased and wrong.” Find out why readers such as Strawn responded with some heat to Sachs’s November 2006 column in the letters below. Correspondents were also drawn to fiery phenomena in other articles in that issue: from the mysterious sparkings in our brains’ inner space explored in a special section on mirror neurons to the first light of outer space described in an article about the Dark Ages of the universe....

Kenya’s national parks serve as oases in an increasingly human-crowded world, but they are not a conservation panacea. As in much of East Africa, a striking two thirds of the country’s wildlife resides outside of national parks—and these animals are not welcome visitors for many landowners, who see them as competition for livestock. But in a rare win-win situation for humans and nature, researchers have now shown that livestock and wildlife can benefit from each other’s presence....

Neutrinos are everywhere in the universe, but we cannot see them or feel them and can almost never stop them. They stream through our bodies by the trillions every second, flitting through the spaces between our atoms with nary a collision. These ghostly particles were created in abundance during the big bang, and stars like the sun pump out more all the time. Yet for all their plentitude, neutrinos may be the most mysterious particles in the cosmos....

To human eyes, the soil may look like a brown layer of plant mush that fits into the rocks, but it is actually a highly complex living environment. Not only must the bacteria that live within it share their space with small animals, protozoa and fungi, but they also must work around giant complexes of tree roots. These roots are not just static objects but take an active part in shaping the microbial communities around them....

Key concepts Psychology Reading Colors Perception Reaction time Introduction Have you ever tried to pat your head with one hand while you rub your stomach with the other? This science activity is kind of like doing that but it can actually give you some insight into how your brain works. The challenge of this activity is to name colors. It sounds simple enough, right? If you think it does, you should see what happens when words of colors get in the way!...

When the new computer-generated Star Wars: The Clone Wars film hits theaters this weekend, moviegoers will see some new characters among the saga’s familiar faces, as Jedi Anakin Skywalker and evil Sith Lord Count Dooku both take on female apprentices. Will these new trainees test their teachers’ loyalty to their own masters, namely Obi-Wan Kenobi for Anakin and Darth Sidious for Dooku? And how might the presence of another woman complicate Anakin’s relationship with his secret wife, Senator Padme Amidala?...

It’s not only in newspaper headlines–it’s even on magazine covers. TIME, U.S. News & World Report and even Scientific American Mind have all run cover stories proclaiming that an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irresponsible behavior of teenagers. The assertion is driven by various studies of brain activity and anatomy in teens. Imaging studies sometimes show, for example, that teens and adults use their brains somewhat differently when performing certain tasks....

Around 100 years ago, women were legally banned from wearing pants. In fact, women were not allowed to wear pants on the floor of the United States Senate until 1993. In the 17th century, men commonly wore high heels. In the ’80s and ’90s, you could expect to be greeted with a thick cloud of cigarette smoke when you entered public spaces, like restaurants and even offices. As a child, I rarely rode in a car seat and always slept on my stomach in a crib surrounded by soft, padded bumpers—all things that would get a parent ostracized if not arrested today....

Young children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails may be less likely to develop allergies later in childhood, according to a new study that spanned three decades. Although the results do not suggest that kids should take up these habits, the findings do suggest the habits help protect against allergies that persists into adulthood, the researchers said. “Many parents discourage these habits, and we do not have enough evidence to [advise they] change this,” said Dr....

US mathematician Dennis Sullivan has won one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics, for his contributions to topology—the study of qualitative properties of shapes—and related fields. “Sullivan has repeatedly changed the landscape of topology by introducing new concepts, proving landmark theorems, answering old conjectures and formulating new problems that have driven the field forwards,” says the citation for the 2022 Abel Prize, which was announced by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, based in Oslo, on 23 March....

The world cannot afford to dump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Yet it is not cutting back. All indications are that the concentration of CO2 will continue to rise for decades. Despite great support for renewable energy, developed and developing countries will probably burn more oil, coal and natural gas in the future. For transportation, the alternatives to petroleum appear especially far off. Onboard energy storage for electric vehicles is difficult; for a given mass, batteries hold less than 1 percent of the energy stored in gasoline....

Dear EarthTalk: What is the new documentary film A Fierce Green Fire about and what does the title refer to? — Gloria Howard, Washington, DC A Fierce Green Fire is a new film documenting the rise of the modern environmental movement from the 1960s through the present day. It premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and will be playing at select theaters across the country beginning in September 2013. Educators, environmental groups and grassroots activists also will be showing the film at small and large events from coast to coast over the course of the fall....

In recent years, I have accepted growing responsibilities as a mentor of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers in my new research group. I have been entrusted as the VP for ethics, diversity, equity and inclusion of an international scientific society, charged to be someone to support changes that can lead to leveling opportunities in academia. In science, our careers are defined by the findings that we publish based on the research we do in the lab or in the field....

Dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria and other pathogens have now emerged in every part of the world and threaten to roll back a century of medical advances. That’s the message from the World Health Organization in its first global report on this growing problem, which draws on drug-resistance data in 114 countries. “A post antibiotic-era—in which common infections and minor injuries can kill—far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century,” wrote Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director general for Health Security, in an introduction to the report....

Daniel Smith remembers when he first tried to sell a bamboo floor. The San Francisco entrepreneur thought his woodlike product was attractive and durable, but when he took samples to a Dallas trade show in 1994, the reaction wasn’t quite what he had hoped for. No one believed the plant’s round stalks—then most familiar in the U.S. as the stuff of backyard torches—could be turned into a smooth, lasting floor. “One architect said to me, ‘I appreciate that you’re at the cutting edge of design and development, but I don’t want to be cut by that edge,” Smith says....