As Nevada and California endure a fourth year of unprecedented drought and this year’s Sierra Nevada snowpack is verified as a 500-year low, a group of Ph.D. scientists from Nevada are knocking on the front door of the tech-industry with a pitch for investment in next generation weather intelligence.

Extreme weather events such as the ongoing drought and mega-fires in the West, record-setting hurricanes in the East, and flash floods across the Mid-West cause upwards of $11 billion in damages each year in the United States.

Research published recently in Science as Culture suggests that men are surprisingly positive and open to the concept of having cancer-detecting biosensors implanted within their bodies – effectively making them cyborgs.

Such auto biotechnologies can aid in the treatment or repair of tissue and organs without external human direction or control. They represent version 2.0 of cyborgs as originally invented by Clynes and Kline in the early 1960’s, referred to as the bodily adaptations required by individuals to live in outer space. Since then, science and technology have made giant leaps forward, leading to the innovative concept of ‘everyday cyborgs’, now increasingly forming an integral part of our reality.

We each give off millions of bacteria from our human microbiome to the air around us every day, and that cloud of bacteria can be traced back to an individual. New research focused on the personal microbial cloud -- the airborne microbes we emit into the air -- examined the microbial connection we have with the air around us.

The findings demonstrate the extent to which humans possess a unique 'microbial cloud signature.'

The challenge of providing Ph.D. students in Physics with an overview of statistical methods and concepts useful for data analysis in just three hours of lectures is definitely a serious one, so I decided to take it as I got invited to the "Indian Summer School" in the pleasant lakeside town of Traunkirchen, Austria. 

Is the public jaded to Internet marketing campaigns concerning overseas crises?

Gayle Newland, 25, has been convicted of three counts of sexual assault against a woman who had believed she was in a sexual relationship with a man. Newland’s case has thrown up some very thorny questions about gender and sexual consent – and about what, exactly, we are required by law to reveal to our sexual partners.

Astronomers have successfully peered through the 'amniotic sac' of a star that is still forming to observe the innermost region of a burgeoning solar system for the first time.

In a research paper published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, an international team of astronomers describe surprising findings in their observations of the parent star, which is called HD 100546.

Lead author Dr Ignacio Mendigutía, from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds, said: "Nobody has ever been able to probe this close to a star that is still forming and which also has at least one planet so close in.

In Australian homes, reliable hot water supplies for taking showers or bathing the kids are taken for granted. But this has a significant cost – conventional hot water heaters can account for up to 30% of household energy use and can be significant carbon emitters.

One alternative is solar hot water, which can supply more than 90% of household hot water and reduce energy bills by 50-85%, as well as lowering carbon emissions.

There are countless parenting questions that science can’t answer: “is it gross to eat food my child spat out?”, “why do my kids hate wearing pants?” and, of course, “when they grow up, will my kids remember how much I loved them, or just that I made them wear pants?”.

Fortunately, there are some important parenting issues science can address. Here are five simple tips for raising healthy children based on scientific studies from the last 12 months,.

1. Dads can – and should – help with breastfeeding

If you have to go without gluten but want to maintain the texture of popular foods that contain this sticky protein, you are forced to use substitutes containing extra sugar, extra fat, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose and xanthan gum, none of which are all that great from an overall health perspective. Given that, opting for a gluten-free diet makes little sense unless it's necessary.