While it may seem innocent at this phase, even a bit clumsy and silly tumbling in the water alongside perhaps hundreds more wrigglers, the larvae grow up to be disease-carrying bloodsuckers—what scientists call vectors. So Ruiz flags the spot for treatment with bacterial spray toxic only to the insects. This is a typical day for Ruiz, a technician at Delta Mosquito and Vector Control District (DMVCD): hunting for an insect that also hunts for him....

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, an energy crisis spread around the world as natural gas and gasoline prices surged. Since then, governments around the world have been working to find additional sources of energy to make up for the deficits due to the war. Early on, some worried that this fear could hamper efforts to transition to renewable energy, and the United States and the United Kingdom both pledged to encourage more fossil fuel extraction to ease prices....

At this year’s Consumer Electronic Show, on January 5, Chrysler joined its automotive colleagues by showing off the Airflow, a passenger-centric concept vehicle that previews the Detroit-brand’s upcoming battery-electric future. Under the direction of its parent brand, Stellantis, Chrysler joins siblings like Dodge and Jeep to build its foundation as an all-electric brand. A full-on battery-powered crossover like the Airflow concept is a huge step away from the automaker’s comfort zone, and from what they’ve previewed so far, it looks to be surprisingly well executed....

It’s also not a new idea that our physical surroundings may weigh on our mental health as well. Back in the 1930s, two sociologists noticed a striking pattern amongst the people being admitted to Chicago’s asylums. Rates of schizophrenia, they reported, were unusually high in those born to inner-city neighborhoods. Since then, researchers have discovered that mental illnesses of all kinds are more common in densely populated cities than in greener and more rural areas....

“We are on the pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5 degree limit,” he said in a press conference this morning. “Some government and business leaders are saying one thing and doing another. Simply put, they are lying. The results will be catastrophic.” The more than 3,000 page report, produced by 278 authors across 65 countries, has shown that greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest level across all human history between 2010 and 2019....

The structures that the team created are physiologically stable, meaning that they don’t degrade inside the body. The researchers are hoping they can be immediately tried as a new way to deliver drugs to the right place in the body. The new printing method is based on a famous mathematical question from the early eighteenth century, known as “the seven bridges of Königsberg.” Königsberg (today’s Kaliningrad in Russia) is sprawled in and around an island with seven bridges connecting the island with the rest of the city....

This post has been updated. The novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019 is now spreading extensively throughout communities in the United States and has reached global pandemic status. We’ve collected some of the latest news and findings on COVID-19 to inform your decisions during this time. What is COVID-19? COVID-19 is the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. You can read more about the virus and what we know about its origins here....

The US now accounts for close to 30 percent of reported COVID-19 deaths across the world. First identified in Wuhan, China, in December, the novel coronavirus claimed its first life in the States on February 29 in Kirkland, Washington. Three months later, the disease has touched nearly every part of the country, with cases still rising sharply in many states. Last night, on Wednesday, May 27, the US death toll crossed the 100,000 mark....

The map shows where and when birds lived, which offers a glimpse of species diversification around the planet. One big takeaway: Birds have been diversifying at an increasing rate in the past 50 million years. Today, 9,993 living species are known. This is significant, because it runs counter to a prevailing view in biodiversity circles, the study’s authors say. “A new distinctive group, like bumblebees or tunafish, first evolves, and, if conditions are right, it quickly radiates to produce a large number of species,” says co-author Arne Mooers of Simon Fraser University in Canada....

Actually seeing the sensor on ARGUS-IS, or Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, is still classified, but the basics of how it works have been deemed fit for public consumption. ARGUS-IS uses 368 imaging chips like those found in cell phone cameras, to stitch together a 1.8 billion pixel video. That means from 17,500 feet in the air, ARGUS-IS can see someone on the ground waving their arms. And it generates that kind of high-definition video for an area 15 square miles across....

The earthquake itself registered a 7.9 on the Richter Scale, but it has also been followed by more than 1,000 fear-inducing tremors in the area, one of which reached as high as 6.1. Seismologists say the Sichuan earthquake was shallow, originating just 11.8 miles below the surface, which explains the violent rumbling. They also believe that it was caused by the very same process that built up the Himalaya mountains – the Indian continental plate slowly grinding into the Asian continent....

“You have this set of microbes in your gut that you’re dependent on, for a large number of things you take for granted,” says study coauthor James Scott, a researcher who studies environmental health at the University of Toronto. “It’s interesting to see that they’re subject to influences in your environment in ways you’ve never thought.” The jury is still out on exactly how gut bacteria are actually capable of making us fat or keeping us thin....

There’s a good reason for this. The brain mainly uses glucose for energy, but is unable to store this type of sugar. The body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose and delivers it to the brain via the bloodstream. Depriving the body of carbohydrates deprives the brain of energy, and, voila: you’re repeating third grade, or at least repeatedly asking a question you first posed just ten minutes ago. According to Nutrition....

Developed in the 19th century in France by the code’s eponymous Louis Braille, the system was inspired by a military system that used raised dots to create a text soldiers could read with their fingers in the dark of night without using any light that could give away their position to the enemy. Braille’s codified system created words, letters, and characters out of a six-dot grid: two parallel rows each with three raised dots form a single Braille “cell....

The moody sound bite comes from the magnetic field generated by Earth’s core and its interaction with a solar storm. Earth’s magnetic field is essential to life on the planet, but it isn’t something that we can typically see or hear. It’s basically a shield that protects the planet from the cosmic radiation and charged particles coming from solar winds. When the colorful aurora borealis (or northern lights) dances across the night sky in the upper latitudes, it’s a visual example of charged particles from the sun interacting with Earth’s magnetic field....

Although the policy update is dated November 23, Twitter has yet to make an explicit public announcement regarding the reversal. News of the change has trickled down to the public via users, reporters, and media outlets. “… [A]s the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines expands around the world at varying degrees of pace and scale, people continue to turn to Twitter to discuss what’s happening and find the latest authoritative public health information....

The key reason is that when women have greater rights, they have fewer children. Rights include ready access to birth control and emergency abortion, but they also include greater access to education and nutrition. This could be a humane way to reduce the world’s expected population growth to 8.6 billion rather than 9.6 billion. This will not be a simple task, the authors admit: “After all, there is not a single nation where women are truly treated as equal to men....

During that time, she worked twelve-hour days. At one point, encroaching flames forced her and her crew up a hill and into a safety zone where 120-foot flames towered just 400 feet from them. She watched as flames engulfed a home, helpless to do anything about it. For the first time, she was fighting fires at the interface between wildlands and residential areas, events that have increased in recent years due to a number of factors: a growing number of homes built near forests, policies around forest management that emphasize fire suppression, and climate change....

Until this month there was no empirical evidence to prove the hypothesis. Now, researchers at the University of Capetown have published the first scientific study giving weight to the theory in Biology Letters. To do so, scientists analyzed the malar stripe on peregrine falcons, prolific aerial predators that can be found on every continent besides Antarctica. They found the larger and darker the malar stripe, the more likely the raptor lived in a habitat with greater solar radiation....

Through this decision, donors hope to improve the health and lives of those they leave behind by furthering disease research and teaching young medical students human anatomy. Yet for some would-be-donors and their families, this altruistic dream can come crashing down over some seemingly minor measurement: How much does the body weigh? The question puts in place a barrier that can impact how higher-weight bodies are treated not only in medical school, but in doctor’s offices as well....