Honey bees, which pollinate many valuable crops, are threatened by parasites, pesticides and development. But selective breeding, more benign pesticides and better nutrition could help turn the tide.
Purportedly Chinese dredging vessels are building up land around Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea last year.
U.S. Navy via Reuters
The Philippines is cheering a ruling that China’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea have no legal basis. But the ruling will also ratchet up military tensions with the U.S.
How do government agencies make decisions?
Flowchart diagram via shutterstock.com
Data-driven algorithms drive decision-making in ways that touch our economic, social and civic lives. But they contain inherent biases and assumptions that are too often invisible to the public.
Obama’s message while in Vietnam and Japan may be twofold.
REUTERS
Beneath the usual pomp and circumstance of Obama’s weeklong visit to Asia lies a clear message for aggressors in the region. An East Asia expert from UC Berkeley reads between the lines.
Intense: driven by drier conditions and earlier spring melts, wildfires are getting more potent.
kylewith/flickr
A review of more than 40 years of wildfire activity in the western U.S. demonstrates the potent effect drier, warming spring seasons, due to climate change, is having on wildfires.
Ransomware – which encrypts your files and offers to sell you the key – operates differently from other malicious software. Those differences turn out to give potential victims a fighting chance.
We need a global target for reducing emissions in agriculture to meet the Paris Agreement. Farmers have an opportunity to help meet the 2 degree C target in the Paris Agreement, but known practices will not be enough.
chrisgold/flickr
New White House guidelines on sex discrimination have caused backlash in some states and school districts. But it won’t last, according to researcher at UMass Amherst.
Are the odds in favor of big computer-assisted bettors?
USA Today Sports/Reuters/
Are regular bettors and the house helped or hurt when deep-pocketed, high-volume computer-assisted bettors are wagering? Mathematicians used game theory to model this new wrinkle in parimutuel betting.
An EgyptAir plane disappeared from radar en route to Egypt from Paris.
REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
Only six percent of airline accidents in 2015 included fatalities. A security expert argues that a more accurate risk assessment of airline travel would take into account close calls.
This clay facial reconstruction of Kennewick Man, carefully sculpted around the morphological features of his skull, suggests how he may have looked alive nearly 9,000 years ago.
Brittney Tatchell, Smithsonian Institution
A 9,000-year-old skeleton became a high-profile and highly contested case for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. How do we respectfully deal with ancient human remains?
Gaming makes getting older better, and more fun.
City and County of San Francisco Bandwidth Opportunities Program
Gaming is a way to connect to family members. Those relationships can improve mental and physical well-being, in addition to creating meaningful personal bonds.
Researchers got 128 students at a middle school to use Twitter to further their science learning. And what happened? These students learned how to connect science to real life.
U.S. states need to put in place new ozone air quality standards, but how they are measured – based on peak ozone – doesn’t always best reflect a city’s overall air quality.
Focusing on the jobs we lost may not be the best way to do this.
David McNew/Reuters
Instead of trying to bring back the old economy jobs that have been lost, the U.S. should focus on training Americans in the new skills that will be needed in tomorrow’s economy.
Protestors rally against interim Brazilian President Michel Temer.
REUTERS/Nacho Doce
New guidelines from the World Health Organization mean more people are eligible for antiretrorviral therapy. It’s critical to find ways for people to start treatment without multiple clinic visits.
Among the top 50 philosophy departments in the U.S., only four have a member of their regular faculty teaching Chinese philosophy. Why is this problematic?
Drilling on a farm in North Dakota, site of a huge economic upswing from the oil and gas industry.
timevanson/flickr
The boom in oil and gas development has brought new revenues to many communities in the U.S., but rural areas in particular have struggled to handle the rapid downturn in prices.
Neoliberal policies have given way to resentment toward immigrants in Germany and other European countries.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
Why are populist candidates all the rage this year in the race for the White House? Recent research from Harvard and BU links it to the market economy and a similar trend in Europe.
How safe are campuses for grad students?
Main image via www.shutterstock.com
Researchers found over a third of female graduate students and a fifth of male graduate students on the campus of a large public university had experienced sexual harassment.
How good are people at interpreting a cat’s meow?
'Cats' via www.shutterstock.com
While cats – with their steely demeanor – have a reputation of being hard to read, humans seem intent on figuring out what they’re thinking and feeling.