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U.S. The Food and Drug Administration approved the world’s first 3-D-printed drug, for an epilepsy treatment called Spritam. The number of extruded layers determines the dosage per pill. BRAZIL Analysis of 37 water samples from in and around Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay, the planned site for some of the 2016 Summer Olympic events, revealed abnormally high levels of harmful bacteria, including human adenovirus, which causes intestinal and respiratory diseases. U....

The combination of a rigid organic cage molecule and a bulky solvent has allowed researchers to produce liquids with permanent porosity. This new class of porous material combines the benefits of a liquid with those of a solid adsorbent framework and may find applications in important areas such as catalysis or carbon capture. Porous solids, such as zeolites or metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), are commonly used in various chemical processes. These materials are structurally rigid and contain permanent cavities of regular sizes and shapes....

This story is second in a two-part series on Louisiana’s rapidly disappearing coastline. Read part one. As Brig. Gen Duke DeLuca wrapped up his 32-year career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August, he contemplated the key to Louisiana’s massive, 50-year, $50 billion effort to prevent the southeastern portion of the state from being swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. DeLuca, an expert on the many threats facing the coast, said: “It will take a moon-shot type of investment in the science....

A tiny ocean organism’s relationship with an alga is shedding light on an unexplained process that occurred more than a billion years ago and drove the evolution of plants and algae. The colorless organism, named Hatena (meaning “enigma” in Japanese) by the Japanese scientists that described it the October 14 issue of Science, alternates between two phases: one allows it to host, and another allows it to devour a green alga....

Trailblazing technologies that improved high-speed long-distance communication, provided the blueprint for mobile phone networks, introduced DNA fingerprinting, and created new drug delivery systems were announced Tuesday as finalists for Finland’s 2008 Millennium Technology Prize. The Millennium Prize Foundation established the biennial award in 2004 to recognize innovative approaches in areas such as health care and sustainable energy. It looks at “specific, groundbreaking innovation that has a clear, measurable impact on people’s quality of life,” Finnish entrepreneur Jorma Ollila, who chairs both Nokia’s and Royal Dutch Shell’s boards of directors, said during a press conference at the New York Academy of Sciences announcing the six scientists who will share the $1....

As many as 3,331 people annually could die from heat waves by 2080 in New York City alone if no steps are taken to adapt to warming temperatures and reduce emissions, a new study warns. The report comes at the same time as a separate analysis tracing climate change and air pollution’s effects on children. Together the studies, both out of Columbia University, lay out the case for cutting carbon now....

Until 10 years ago, radio astronomers thought they had assembled an essentially complete picture of the sky. In this view, with telescopes attuned to radio waves rather than visible light, the solar system’s brightest radio sources—the sun and Jupiter—would pale against the Milky Way’s splendor. Aglow with radio emissions from sizzling supernovae debris, gas-shrouded stellar nurseries and the metronomic flashes of pulsars, our galaxy would dominate the vista overhead. Beyond that the entire sky would be speckled with steady, starlike points of luminosity from radio-belching supermassive black holes at the centers of distant galaxies....

Pandemic recovery plans that invest in or subsidize fossil fuels will increase the spread of infectious diseases globally by contributing to climate change, according to a new report from The Lancet, a leading medical journal. Increased infections of dengue fever, cholera and malaria are just some of the ways, along with more severe heat waves and wildfires, that failure to act on climate change will have catastrophic health impacts around the world and in the United States, according to “The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change,” which has 93 authors across 43 academic institutions and United Nations agencies....

Pinpointing where motivation resides in the brain is not easy, but a research team in China may have done just that. The group isolated a small group of neurons in the brains of mice that play a critical role in persistent behavior, according to a study published today in Science. This handful of brain cells is known as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, or dmPFC, and it sits in a region integral for learning appropriate social behavior....

For every New Yorker who fled the city during the pandemic, many more never left the five boroughs. For months, like people all over the country, we hunkered down in our apartments, and our worlds got a lot smaller. During the first wave of the pandemic, the city’s parks became my refuge. When it felt like the world was closing in on me, what kept me sane was putting on a pair of boots to hike trails through the woods in Pelham Bay or to walk around the marshes of Jamaica Bay—wild places right in my own backyard....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that almost half the world’s population was at risk of malaria, while some 627,000 people died from the disease. Although a malaria vaccine may soon be available (the WHO recommended one for children last year), malaria is just one of several mosquito-borne diseases. And the total number of mosquito-related infections is bound to rise as climate change extends mosquito populations....

Harris Gelbard was doing his residency in pediatric neurology in 1988 when one of his colleagues was diagnosed with AIDS. The man developed every neurological and psychiatric complication in the book: stroke, Parkinson’s, paranoia. Then a gripping dementia left the 34-year-old doctor mute and in diapers. He died shortly thereafter. Since then, Gelbard has spent his career studying how AIDS affects the brain, and he recently discovered what could be the first treatment for HIV dementia: valproic acid, used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder....

The suburbs evoke images of white picket fences and organized sports, a peaceful escape from big-city living. But new research finds verdant residential communities are increasingly likely to go up in smoke. In an analysis of more than 23 million fires, a study published this week in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution finds a cluster of “economically and socially disastrous” fires, or megafires as they’re sometimes called, have scorched suburban neighborhoods, especially across the western U....

In medical school I was taught that the incidence of chronic, disabling disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, increases inexorably with age. I therefore expected that people older than 95 years, often called the oldest old, would be my most debilitated patients. Yet when I became a fellow in geriatrics, I was surprised to find that the oldest old were often the most healthy and agile of the senior people under my care....

Scientists have been engaging for decades in an avid hunt for a biological explanation for why some people are transgender. This urge to find a biological explanation for the existence of trans, and, more generally, LGBTQ, folks was born out of the need to confront the harmful discourse trumpeted by some Christian Right organizations that being gay or transgender is a sinful choice people make. Taken to the extreme, this rhetoric is used to justify the existence and continued perpetuation of the so-called “cure” known as conversion therapy—a practice long considered harmful to LGBTQ individuals and denounced by multiple medical bodies....

Red is a powerful color. It’s the color of Cupid and the Devil, the color of love and hate. It brings to mind hot-blooded anger and Scarlet Letter shame. It means luck in China, where bridal wear is red, mourning in parts of Africa and sex in Amsterdam’s red-light district. Some of the hue’s significance has a biological basis. Many humans get red in the face from increased blood flow when they are angry....

For decades, guidance on cholesterol levels has come as a tidy dichotomy: LDL cholesterol is ‘bad’ for heart health; HDL cholesterol is ‘good’. But a genetic study adds to mounting evidence that the truth is not so simple—and that having high levels of HDL cholesterol may not protect against heart disease. The study, published on March 10 in Science, pitted the genomes of 852 people with high levels of HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol in their blood against those of a control group of 1,156 people with low HDL cholesterol....

Key concepts Chemistry Food Science pH Acidity Introduction Have you ever wondered why some foods or drinks taste sour whereas others do not? You might know that your tongue is picking up all kinds of flavors, including salty, sweet, bitter and sour. But what makes something taste sour? The sour taste is actually influenced by the pH and acids present in foods. In this activity you will find out how sour different foods are by testing foods and drinks for the presence of acids with baking soda....

A new study has found that a small number of gas wells are releasing significant quantities of methane into the air even before they are hydraulically fractured, or fracked. The paper, published yesterday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the result of measurements of methane made by flying an airplane over parts of the Marcellus Shale. The researchers detected a “significant regional flux” of methane, a greenhouse gas with about 30 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, coming from an area of gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania....

Key concepts Chemistry Light Static electricity Fluorescence Introduction Did you know that instances of miniature lightning can occur in your mouth when you bite on a hard candy? Would it not be fascinating if you could observe these light flashes? Lifesavers Wint O Green Mints might just be the tool we need to observe this science! Crush them, observe and detect what makes the flashes visible. How many sparks can you see?...