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The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell Dutton, 2015 (($27.95)) The twin Voyager space probes, launched by NASA in 1977, have traveled farther into the cosmos than any other human-made machine. Now about 19.5 billion kilometers from home, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to exit the solar system in 2013. Voyager 2 should follow this year. Their mission was not just to visit outer planets that people had never seen up close but to be emissaries to the universe for Earth’s citizens....

Children exposed in the womb to chemicals in cosmetics and fragrances are more likely to develop behavioral problems commonly found in children with attention deficit disorders, according to a study of New York City school-age children published Thursday. Scientists at Mount Sinai School of Medicine reported that mothers who had high levels of phthalates during their pregnancies were more likely to have children with poorer scores in the areas of attention, aggression and conduct....

A genetic-modification technique used widely to make crops herbicide resistant has been shown to confer advantages on a weedy form of rice, even in the absence of the herbicide. The finding suggests that the effects of such modification have the potential to extend beyond farms and into the wild. Several types of crops have been genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide first marketed under the trade name Roundup....

Even if world leaders sign a new climate treaty and begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions, it could be years before their progress can be independently verified, says a new National Academy of Sciences report. Current U.N. rules require countries to submit national emissions inventories, but the data are self-reported, not required regularly from all countries, and there are no independent data to verify it. Developing the capacity to cross-check those self-reported numbers is at least five years off, according to the NAS analysis released Friday....

Nature has conjured up numerous defenses to water, imbuing duck feathers, lotus leaves and even butterfly wings with the ability to repel that ubiquitous liquid of life. But it hasn’t had much time to come up with a way to protect its constituents against a newcomer like gasoline. So a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and the Air Force Research Laboratory sought to correct that shortcoming by engineering so-called omniphobic surfaces that repel not only water—then they would be just hydrophobic—but also oil-based liquids and alcohols....

Game theory has proved itself countless times over as a powerful means for achieving success—from winning military battles to staging political campaigns. Until now, though, no one had applied it to the challenges of parenting. So Raeburn, an award-winning science writer and parent, and Zollman, a game theorist, set out to explore what would happen if you applied classic strategies from game theory to everyday negotiations with your kids. As they explained to Scientific American MIND senior editor, Kristin Ozelli, “We thought that something that has worked so well in so many human relationships and business dealings should work well with children....

For as long as he can remember, Bryan Alvarez has thought his mother resembled a Mark Rothko painting. The likeness is not just a metaphor he conjured up one day. Whenever he conceives of her name, Marla, he literally sees, in his mind’s eye, blocks of colors, each one blending into the next—grainy, brick red for the M, bright, blood red for the A, eggplant purple for the R, plum purple for the L and red again for the final A....

Scientists have investigated this question for more than a century, and the answer is clear: the differences between people on intelligence tests are substantially the result of genetic differences. But let’s unpack that sentence. We are talking about average differences among people and not about individuals. Any one person’s intelligence might be blown off course from its genetic potential by, for example, an illness in childhood. By genetic, we mean differences passed from one generation to the next via DNA....

In October 1997, at the age of 58, David Ho had an unusual experience while listening to a recording of Bach. “I began to dance and pretended to conduct,” he says. “And as I practiced, instead of following the music, I felt as if I were creating it. I entered into a state of selfless oblivion, like a trance. My mind exploded. Flashes of insight rained down, and I saw beauty everywhere, in faces, living things and the cosmos....

New projections from the World Health Organization paint a worsening future for the months ahead if Ebola is not properly contained, suggesting that the caseload will total more than 20,000 by November. The new data also unseats the common perception that Ebola has a disproportionate impact on women, instead finding that the epidemic has affected men and women in roughly equal numbers. A separate analysis, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday, projects the caseload could be even higher—between 8,000 and 21,000 by the end of September in Sierra Leone and Liberia alone....

Masks and testing have been key to the COVID-19 pandemic response—and now devices that combine the two may be on the way. Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers used synthetic biology to create a face mask that accurately detects the COVID-causing virus. Synthetic biologists use biological parts to build various devices, including sensors that detect genetic sequences. Previous efforts have used engineered bacteria in these sensors, but living cells bring challenges (like keeping them fed) and biohazard risks....

Seismic activity in the San Francisco bay region of California appears to follow a cyclical pattern, and the region may be due for a big quake or a cluster of large earthquakes in coming decades, geologists report today in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. The researchers studied historical earthquake records from 1776 to 2012 as well as palaeoseismic data, which come from radiocarbon dating and evidence of movement in the layers of rock at fault sites, dating back to 1600....

This is our second activity that requires the use of a smartphone or tablet. Please let us know what you think. E-mail editors@sciam.com with feedback about the use of technology in this—and future—Bring Science Home activities. Key Concepts Physics Light Measurement Mathematics Introduction Did you know you can use a smartphone as a scientific instrument to explore the world around you? Smartphones contain many built-in electronic sensors that can measure phenomena such as sound, light, motion and more....

On December 20, 2015, a mountain of urban refuse collapsed in Shenzhen, China, killing at least 69 people and destroying dozens of buildings. The disaster brought to life the towers of waste depicted in the 2008 dystopian children’s movie WALL-E, which portrayed the horrible yet real idea that our trash could pile up uncontrollably, squeezing us out of our habitat. A powerful way to transform an existing city into a sustainable one—a city that preserves the earth rather than ruining it—is to reduce all the waste streams and then use what remains as a resource....

The following is an edited excerpt from Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived, by Chip Walter. Walker & Company, January 29, 2013. Copyright © William J. (Chip) Walter, Jr. Striding on two legs efficiently—not waddling the way a chimp or gorilla does when it walks upright—requires, among other adaptations, a fundamental rearrangement of pelvic architecture. An upright stride narrows the hips, and for females, narrowing the hips narrows the birth canal, and a slimmer birth canal makes for increasingly snug trips for newborns out of the womb....

Many of us use water thoughtlessly; it seems as abundant as the air we breathe and a free swig is available almost anywhere. But fresh, potable water is already a precious commodity in many drier parts of the world, and as it grows rarer—and thus, dearer—in developed countries, the true value of H2O is beginning to seep in. Until water shortages impact more of us directly it is likely that this liquid resource will continue to be poorly managed....

WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - The engineers in two New York City area commuter train crashes suffered from undiagnosed sleep disorders, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday. The board plans to hold a Feb. 6 meeting on the September 2016 crash in Hoboken, New Jersey, that killed one person and injured more than 100 others, and the January accident in Brooklyn that left more than 100 people with non-life-threatening injuries....

Vultures are hard birds for humans to love. They are an obligate scavenger, meaning they get all their food from already dead prey—and that association has cast them as a harbinger of death since ancient times. But in reality, vultures are nature’s flying sanitation crew. And new research adds to that positive picture by detailing these birds’ role in a surprising process: mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. With their impressive vision and the range they can cover in their long, soaring flights, the 22 species of vultures found around the world are often the first scavengers to discover and feed on a carcass....

Americans never tire of rooting for the underdog or praising the self-starter who climbs his or her way to the top through blood, sweat and tears. But in our hearts we may prefer naturals over strivers. And understanding people’s true preferences could help us navigate the worlds of academics, business and art. Five years ago Chia-Jung Tsay, a psychologist now at University College London School of Management, reported a “naturalness bias....

Obesity is a national health crisis—that much we know. If current trends continue, it will soon surpass smoking in the U.S. as the biggest single factor in early death, reduced quality of life and increased health care costs. A third of adults in the U.S. are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and another third are overweight, with Americans getting fatter every year. Obesity is responsible for more than 160,000 “excess” deaths a year, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association....