Confusion lingers over health-related pros and cons of marijuana

No one knows whether chronic marijuana smoking causes emotional troubles or is a symptom of them…. This dearth of evidence has a number of explanations: serious lingering reactions, if they exist, occur after prolonged use, rarely after a single dose; marijuana has no known medical use, unlike LSD, so scientists have had little reason to ... Read more

The Arecibo Observatory will remain open, NSF says

The iconic Arecibo Observatory has survived a hurricane and dodged deep budget cuts. On November 16, the National Science Foundation, which funds the bulk of the observatory’s operating costs, announced that they would continue funding the radio telescope at a reduced level. It’s not clear yet who will manage the observatory in the long run, ... Read more

Hormone replacement makes sense for some menopausal women

Internist Gail Povar has many female patients making their way through menopause, some having a tougher time than others. Several women with similar stories stand out in her mind. Each came to Povar’s Silver Spring, Md., office within a year or two of stopping her period, complaining of frequent hot flashes and poor sleep at ... Read more

When it’s playtime, many kids prefer reality over fantasy

Young children travel to fantasy worlds every day, packing just imaginations and a toy or two. Some preschoolers scurry across ocean floors carrying toy versions of cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. Other kids trek to distant universes with miniature replicas of Star Wars robots R2-D2 and C-3PO. Throngs of youngsters fly on broomsticks and cast magic ... Read more

By 2100, damaged corals may let waves twice as tall as today’s reach coasts

A complex coral reef full of nooks and crannies is a coastline’s best defense against large ocean waves. But coral die-offs over the next century could allow taller waves to penetrate the corals’ defenses, simulations suggest. A new study finds that at some Pacific Island sites, waves reaching the shore could be more than twice ... Read more

Forget Pi Day. We should be celebrating Tau Day

As a physics reporter and lover of mathematics, I won’t be celebrating Pi Day this year. That’s because pi is wrong. I don’t mean that the value is incorrect. Pi, known by the symbol π, is the number you get when you divide a circle’s circumference by its diameter: 3.14159… and so on without end. ... Read more

The mystery of Christiaan Huygens’ flawed telescopes may have been solved

17th century scientist Christiaan Huygens set his sights on faraway Saturn, but he may have been nearsighted. Huygens is known, in part, for discovering Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and deducing the shape of the planet’s rings. But by some accounts, the Dutch scientist’s telescopes produced fuzzier views than others of the time despite having well-crafted ... Read more

50 years ago, atomic testing created otter refugees

Sea otters restocked in old home When the [Atomic Energy Commission] first cast its eye on the island of Amchitka as a possible site for the testing of underground nuclear explosions, howls of anguish went up; the island is part of the Aleutians National Wildlife Refuge, created to preserve the colonies of nesting birds and ... Read more

Martian soil may have all the nutrients rice needs

THE WOODLANDS, TEXAS — Martian dirt may have all the necessary nutrients for growing rice, one of humankind’s most important foods, planetary scientist Abhilash Ramachandran reported March 13 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. However, the plant may need a bit of help to survive amid perchlorate, a chemical that can be toxic to ... Read more

Biologists are one step closer to creating snake venom in the lab

SAN DIEGO — Labs growing replicas of snakes’ venom glands may one day replace snake farms. Researchers in the Netherlands have succeeded in growing mimics of venom-producing glands from multiple species of snakes. Stem cell biologist Hans Clevers of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, reported the creation of these organoids on December 10 ... Read more