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The Walt Disney Co. yesterday announced new guidelines for sourcing paper used in its popular lines of products and packaging, citing its long-standing commitment to conservation and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. “The paper policy is an example of how Disney conducts business in an environmentally and socially responsible way, and demonstrates the Company’s commitment to creating a lasting, positive impact on ecosystems and communities worldwide,” said Beth Stevens, Disney’s senior vice president of corporate citizenship, environment and conservation, in a statement....

Smoke hung thick in the air and shrubland was still smouldering when firefighters escorted a small team of biologists into Kosciusko National Park in southern New South Wales on 15 January. The expedition, granted a rare exemption from the park’s strict no-go policy during this record-breaking fire season, was to prevent one of Australia’s rarest fish from going extinct. Rain forecast for the following day threatened to wash ash from the fires into the mountain streams, smothering the last remaining Galaxias tantangara, a species of mountain minnow found in a single three-kilometre stretch of the Tantangara Creek....

By Natasha GilbertProviding access to contraception for 215 million women, mainly in developing countries, would help to stabilize population growth and significantly reduce the effects of climate change, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says in a report today.The State of the World Population 2009 report says that population levels will affect countries’ abilities to adapt to the immediate effects of climate change, although the longer-term influence of population growth on climate change will depend on future economic, technological and consumption trends....

INDIANAPOLIS — NASA could use a donated spy satellite telescope to carry out a high-priority mission that would hunt for alien planets and mysterious dark energy, a new report found. Not only would one of two donated U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) telescopes suit the mission of NASA’s proposed Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) — it would boost the mission’s capabilities without much exceeding its expected $1.63 billion budget, according to a study released on May 23....

In the past, I’ve brought up the importance of rest and recovery more than a few times. If you do a quick search on the Quick and DirtyTips website, you can easy find them. I have even interviewed the inventor of a device that specifically measures your recovery based on how well you have slept in comparison to how hard you have worked out. But despite my best efforts as a podcaster, blogger and coach, sleep still remains an elusive and often overlooked aspect of fitness....

The announcement this week that the federal government is changing its policy on the use of human fetal tissue in medical research is designed to please anti-abortion groups that have strongly supported President Donald Trump. But it could jeopardize promising medical research and set back attempts to make inroads in devastating diseases such as HIV, Parkinson’s and diabetes, U.S. scientists said. Under the new policy, employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will no longer conduct research with human fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions, after using up any material they have on hand....

IF YOU WAKE UP one morning with a headache, you might assume that you drank one glass of wine too many the previous night, or that the heat was up too high, or that you are coming down with a cold. You are less likely to jump to the conclusion that you have a brain tumor. But when you find yourself forgetting things, then, omigosh, it must be the onset of Alzheimer’s disease....

At the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak there are finally flickers of hope. Wednesday the World Health Organization reported that even in the absence of new vaccines and medications there have been some significant strides against the virus in Liberia, the country hardest hit by the epidemic. The cautious optimism has set off discussion about what the “next phase” of the Ebola response may entail: even more aggressive tracing of people possibly exposed to Ebola....

In my Scientific American column this month, I wrote about how the police were able to recover my stolen iPhone. How? By going to the house identified by the free Find My iPhone service, a satellite picture of which I had sent to my Twitter followers. Such public location announcements get into murky privacy territory. But at the end of the day, when your phone is lost, Find My iPhone—and similar services for other phones—can be fantastically useful....

Two weeks after President Barack Obama pulled the plug on Yucca Mountain, the site near Las Vegas where the federal government has been trying for 22 years to open a repository for nuclear waste, geochemist James L. Conca came to Washington, D.C., with an idea in his pocket. Conca has been assigned by the state of New Mexico to monitor the environment around a different federal nuclear dump, one used for defense-related plutonium, and where others see problems, he sees opportunity....

Many of the world’s glaciers contain significantly less ice than scientists previously estimated. That means some mountain communities that rely on melting ice may run out of fresh water faster, according to new research. Glaciers in the Andes Mountains of South America, in particular, may contain far less ice than previous studies suggested. That means they may shrink faster than scientists expected, taking their valuable stores of fresh drinking water with them....

After nearly ten months without a permanent commissioner, US President Joe Biden has nominated Robert Califf, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to lead the agency once again. Although some in the research community are opposed to the nomination because of Califf’s ties to industry, others welcome a permanent director after such a long delay, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the agency plays a crucial part....

The private spaceflight companies Boeing and SpaceX are on track to start launching NASA astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017, representatives of both firms said Monday (Jan. 26). In September 2014, SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts under NASA’s commercial crew program to help them start flying astronauts on missions to the space station from U.S. soil in the next few years. SpaceX and Boeing are planning to launch a series of tests of their spaceships—capsules called Dragon V2 and the CST-100, respectively—from this year through 2017....

After heroic efforts to keep school doors open this Fall, schools are yet again shutting down and returning to distance learning as COVID-19 cases spike across the country. With no choice but to return to remote learning, schools have struggled to support their students and provide them with the resources and education they need to succeed. Already the disease has taken a toll. A preprint study of data from the Netherlands conducted during the pandemic shows significant learning losses sustained from March through May, compared with learning gains observed during the same two-month period last year—with a particularly severe drop in achievement for students from less educated homes....

These tree frogs are pros at sticking their landings. And it’s a good thing, because the ability to catch and hold onto a twig or branch is the only thing that lies between the frog and a fatal fall. But little is known about how they do this. Researchers at Kiel University in Germany used high-speed cameras to film the frogs landing on a stick. They found that the frogs grab on with uniquely designed toe pads and use cartwheels and other acrobatics to slow their momentum....

Minuscule blobs of human brain tissue have come a long way in the four years since scientists in Vienna discovered how to create them from stem cells. The most advanced of these human brain organoids — no bigger than a lentil and, until now, existing only in test tubes — pulse with the kind of electrical activity that animates actual brains. They give birth to new neurons, much like full-blown brains....

Every two weeks, a nurse visits 43-year-old Marty Reiswig in Denver, Colorado, and injects him with an experimental drug called gantenerumab. Every month, Reiswig drives into town for a brain scan to make sure the drug has not caused any bleeds. And every year he flies to St Louis, Missouri, for four days of brain scans, spinal taps, blood analyses and exhaustive tests of his memory and reasoning capacity. Reiswig is fit and healthy and runs two local businesses....

Asbestos, trichloroethylene, pigment violet 29—these are just three of thousands of chemicals the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is assessing for risks to human health and ecosystems under the revamped Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Congress overhauled the chemical safety law last summer, with wide bipartisan and industry support. Many viewed the legislation as a much-needed update to old, feeble regulations. Now, though, the Trump administration may be undermining the reformed law....

On April 27, 1817, Jane Austen sat down and wrote her will, leaving almost all of her assets—valued at less than 800 pounds sterling—to her sister Cassandra. In May, the sisters moved to Winchester, England, so the bedridden Jane would be near her doctor. On July 18, only a few days after dictating 24 lines of comic verse to Cassandra, Jane died. Since at least the 1960s Austen scholars, doctors and fans have tried to retrospectively identify the curious illness that killed the 41-year-old English author....

A report published on April 13by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine details the impacts of information technology on the workforce1. We co-chaired the report committee and learnt a great deal in the process — including that, over the next 10–20 years, technology will affect almost every occupation. For example, self-driving vehicles could slash the need for drivers of taxis and long-haul trucks, and online education could enrich options for retraining of displaced workers....