Astronomers figured this out by taking snapshots of the universe at 2, 4, 6 and 9 billion years of age. (It’s 13.7 billion years old now.) The results show a clear decline in star-forming activity. A team led by David Sobral at Leiden Observatory studied the universe’s hydrogen-alpha emission line, which is a reliable indicator of star formation. They used Japan’s Subaru Telescope and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and the Very Large Telescope in Chile, covering a huge portion of the sky....

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, compared body mass index (BMI) among the Ariaal people of northern Kenya. Some of the Ariaal have recently settled down, while other groups continue with the nomadic traditions of their ancestors. The researchers found that nomadic Ariaal with the ADHD-related version of DRD4 had a higher BMI than settled Ariaal with the same gene type. For people like the Ariaal, weight means health, and health means prosperity....

Land mines are a defensive weapon, though one that can certainly be used aggressively. Putting a landmine in place imperils all who would pass through the area, forcing attackers to face immediate danger or slow down their advances as they reroute around the hazard. What the Volcano does, specifically, is allow for the defenders to create a minefield rapidly. “Using a ground vehicle, a 1,000-meter minefield can be laid in 4 to 12 minutes based on terrain and vehicle speed,” reads an Army description....

Through an analysis using tree ring data and precipitation records, a trio of researchers were able to determine that the current drought, which began in 2000 and continues to this day, is the driest 22-year period this region has seen since 800 CE. It’s a megadrought—a prolonged drought that exceeds 20 years—and it is likely to continue for at least a 23rd year. In 75 percent of the research team’s simulations, the drought lasts for 30 years....

Elizabeth Turner, a geologist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, compared the tubes to structures seen in modern sponges and found that they were a close match. This would suggest that sponges actually appeared on the scene prior to several momentous events in Earth’s history that scientists have speculated predated the rise of the animal kingdom. However, Turner emphasizes, the findings aren’t “the final answer.” Sponge fossils are still just a possibility at this point, she says....

It wasn’t from lack of interest. Climate change is already disrupting the lives of the 12,000 people in her hometown, almost all of whom are subsistence hunters and fishers, according to Xakriabá. The problem was that the closest climate strike march to the Xabriabá community was in São Paulo, a 17-hour bus ride away. “But the distance or the time isn’t the most important thing,” says Xakriabá, who went to New York with the support of the organization Guardians of the Forest....

But those are short distances compared to what might happen at this end of this decade. For its 2029 expedition, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to plunk an enclosed, pressurized rover that will hold two to four astronauts on the moon’s surface that will ultimately travel more than 6,000 miles if everything goes according to plan. Toyota is working with JAXA to build the majority of its rover, but Bridgestone has signed on to build the tires on which the astronauts, their gear, and the bulk of the rover will move....

These strawberries look red ­(almost), like fresh fruit should. But this tasty image doesn’t have any rosy hues in it at all. Zoom way in, and you’ll find that the pixels that make up this snack are actually shades of blue and green. You’re seeing scarlet because of a visual phenomenon called color constancy. We perceive color based on the wavelength of light an object reflects. But those wavelengths are always in flux....

They’re still in the patent phase right now, of course, but when they do exist on a full commercial scale, they could work manually at a guard’s behest or they could be programmed to automatically activate when someone in cuffs starts to act up or steps outside of certain boundaries. Safety mechanisms could–hopefully will–be set to prevent a guard from doping or shocking prisoners to the point where they suffer from major side effects....

For starters, the “new” strain is… not new. “The subtype has been around as long as all the other strains have. We just didn’t recognize it as an official subtype until now,” study author Mary Rodgers, principal scientist of infectious disease research for Abbott Laboratories, told NBC. And, as Scientific American reports, the very blood sample used to “discover” this strain has been sitting in a freezer since 2001. The only thing that’s changed since then is our ability to read the genetic sequence of such small amounts of viral DNA....

A Turing test is a standard used by computer scientists to determine whether a machine can display a convincing enough level of human-like intelligence to fool another human into believing that it too, could be human. This is done usually through a version of “the imitation game.” The game works like this: There are three players in total. One player is unable to see the other two players but can communicate with them by asking questions or interacting with them to determine which of the two players is human and which is machine....

The unique critter was found deep underground in Western Australia and boasts up to 1,306 legs—more than the paltry 750 legs previously documented in millipedes, or indeed any other animal. The newly-named Eumillipes persephone and the dethroned previous record holder probably both evolved their seemingly excessive number of limbs to shove themselves through narrow spaces in the soil, the researchers reported on December 16 in Scientific Reports. E. persephone’s subterranean environment is imperiled by mining activities, making conservation efforts critical, says Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech and coauthor of the findings....

But what does America look like without the EPA? From 1971 to 1977 the nascent agency, in an act of prescience, enlisted the services of freelance photographers to help us remember. These photographers captured images of America’s environmental problems before we’d cleaned them up. In 2011, the US National Archives digitized more than 15,000 pictures from the series “Documerica”. Here are some of the most compelling. If you like these images, please read our series on the EPA past and present....

Cook’s speech comes months after the European Union passed the General Data Protection Regulation in May, which establishes far-reaching privacy rules for tech companies with stiff economic penalties for violations. And Apple made users’ personal information available to view and download. “We at Apple are in full support comprehensive federal privacy law in the united states,” Cook said. “Our own information—from the every day to the deeply personal—is being weaponized against us with military efficiency,” he added....

Researchers published a paper about the sequencing today in the journal Nature Genetics. “It was truly an international collaborative effort,” says University of Saskatchewan wheat scientist Curtis Pozniak, one of the paper’s authors. The whopping 68 scientists named on the study hail from institutions in Italy, Germany, Canada, Israel, the United States, Australia, and Turkey. The sequencing effort arose out of an international working group on durum wheat science, he explains....

Says NASA: This portrait of global aerosols was produced by a GEOS-5 simulation at a 10-kilometer resolution. Dust (red) is lifted from the surface, sea salt (blue) swirls inside cyclones, smoke (green) rises from fires, and sulfate particles (white) stream from volcanoes and fossil fuel emissions. It’s also very pretty. Click through below for a wallpaper-worthy version. American Geophysical Union

Kung Pao chicken/chilis Tien tsin, or Chinese red pepper, is named for the port city of Tianjin. But chilis don’t originate in the People’s Republic. Though they’re a key ingredient in many classic dishes, such as the Sichuan staple known as Kung Pao chicken, the spicy plant is native to Mexico. Columbus introduced it to Europeans during the Columbian exchange, who traded it east throughout the 16th century. Tempura/wheat batter Tempura is a cornerstone of Japanese cuisine; chefs batter and deep-fry everything from shrimp to shiitake mushrooms....

Iron Man, which has grossed more than its reported $140 million budget in less than a week due to worldwide box office success, follows Tony Stark, a brilliant, vain, and wildly wealthy weapons designer who has a serious change of heart—literally and figuratively—after getting kidnapped by a band of terrorists. He goes on to build an exoskeleton that allows him to fly at supersonic speeds, catch SUVs, fire all sorts of missiles, and generally fight evil with tech....

Palm oil is a $44 billion industry and is found in products such as lipstick, chocolate, and packaged bread. To make it, farmers plant millions of acres of palm trees, then collect their fruit for processing into oil. But before they can plant those trees, they have to clear the land, which they often do by burning. Often, the fires rage out of control because the land is too dry, thanks in part to water tables lowered from over-irrigation of other nearby farms, according to a separate Guardian piece....

Enter the trampoline. The beauty of the trampoline is that it acts as a highly elastic object. An elastic object (like a spring or a bouncy ball) is able to store energy in the form of elastic potential energy. This elastic energy is not lost into the surroundings, and can easily be reconverted into kinetic energy. That’s why you can jump so high on the trampoline. Unlike with the ground, each time you impact the trampoline you get most of your kinetic energy back on the rebound....