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CLIMATEWIRE | A blistering heat wave in India and Pakistan last month sent temperatures soaring above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, all before the summer had even kicked off. Now scientists say climate change helped make the shocking weather possible. A new analysis finds that global warming made the heat wave at least 30 times more likely to occur. The event was about 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 F, hotter than it would have been in a world without climate change. Without the influence of global warming, “this event was highly,…

More new human cases of monkeypox have been identified worldwide, with dozens reported in the U.K. alone. The increase comes after previous evidence had suggested there was unknown transmission of the monkeypox virus within the country’s population, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Monkeypox is thought to originate in rodents in Central and West Africa, and it has repeatedly jumped to humans. Cases outside Africa are rare and have so far been traced to infected travelers or imported animals. On May 7…

In 2003, Donald Kennedy, then editor in chief of the journal Science, wrote an editorial called, “Forensic Science: Oxymoron?” He answered this question, in effect, “yes.” Unfortunately, the answer remains much the same today. Forensic experts continue to employ unproven techniques, and courts continue to accept their testimony largely unchecked. However, courts have recently begun to recognize the scientific limitations of one forensic field: firearms identification, in which an examiner visually compares fired bullets…

We now know of more than 5,000 exoplanets beyond the solar system. What we really understand about each of these worlds, though, is barely anything at all. Most of them have been seen only indirectly from their shadows as they cross in front of the stars they orbit. The few that researchers have managed to actually take a picture of—that is, to directly image using light emanating from the planets themselves—appear as little more than monochromatic dots even in the very best current telescopes. And so far all of those…

The people who seek out endocrinologist Domenica Rubino have tried again and again to lose weight. Diets of all kinds. Exercise regimens. Health-tracking apps. Some have turned to gastric bypass surgery, lost scores of pounds but then regained them. Many patients have medical problems related to severe obesity, including diabetes, fatty liver disease, hypertension, polycystic ovary syndrome, sleep apnea and painful arthritic joints. Rubino, director of the Washington Center for Weight Management and Research in Arlington,…

For much of the past few decades motor vehicle crashes were the most common cause of death from injury—the leading cause of death in general—among children, teenagers and young adults in the U.S. But now a new analysis shows that, in recent years, guns have overtaken automotive crashes as the leading cause of injury-related death among people ages one through 24. The switchover, which happened in 2017, stems from both a reduction in vehicle-related deaths and a grim uptick in gun-related fatalities. From 2000 to 2020,…

Editor’s Note (5/25/22): This article is being republished in the wake of a school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., that killed at least 19 children and two teachers. It was the deadliest such attack since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, and occurred less than two weeks after a deadly shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 10 Black people in an act of domestic terrorism. After the massacre this week in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that state’s attorney general told Fox News gun control…

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. When the Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999 it was seen as a watershed moment in the United States – the worst mass shooting at a school in the country’s history. Now, it ranks fourth. The three school shootings to surpass its death toll of 13 – 12 students, one teacher – have all taken place within the last decade: 2012’s Sandy Hook Elementary attack, in which a gunman killed 26…

CLIMATEWIRE | Category 6 hurricanes don’t exist on paper. The wind scale used by meteorologists tops out at Category 5, representing storms with sustained winds of 157 mph or more. But researchers at Florida International University plan to create a Category 6 storm in a lab, mimicking conditions they expect to see as climate change drives more extreme weather. The university, which is also home to the National Hurricane Center, is coordinating a team of international experts to design what will be one of the world’s…

Editor’s Note (5/25/22): This article is being republished in the wake of a school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., that killed at least 19 children and two teachers. It was the deadliest such attack since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, and occurred less than two weeks after a deadly shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 10 Black people in an act of domestic terrorism. When Illinois passed a law in 2014 permitting the concealed carrying of firearms—becoming the last of the 50 states to…