X chromosomes are special, even for genetic material. They differ in number between men and women and to achieve equality between sexes, one out of two X chromosomes in women is silenced.

In Drosophila, the opposite happens: in male flies, the only available X chromosome is highly activated, to compensate for the absence of the second X-chromosome.

A new projection estimates that by the middle of this century there could be an average 56 percent drop in the amount of water stored in peak snowpack in the McKenzie River watershed of the Oregon Cascade Range -   if there is a 3.6 degree Fahrenheit temperature increase.

Similar impacts may be found on low-elevation maritime snow packs around the world.

False memories implanted in mice show how easily it is to manipulate recall of events.

In California, there are runaway wildfires because no one is allowed to take a machine into the woods and clear dead trees. Other countries have the opposite problem; a shortage of dead wood in forests results because fallen branches and trees are cleared away too often. 

Our one-size-fits-all federal management policy often hurts the environment under the guise of trying to help. Biologists working in Navarre note that dead wood ought to be decomposing, as it is the habitat of many living beings like lignicolous fungi. These fungi are capable of decomposing dead wood and turning it into organic and inorganic matter. Clearing away the dead wood from the forests is ecologically harmful for the fungi.

Much like a superconductor loses no energy to resistance, a superfluid moves like a completely frictionless liquid, able to propel itself without any hindrance from gravity or surface tension.

The physics underlying these materials, which appear to defy the common sense precepts of conventional physics, has been a source of fascination for decades. 

Liquid helium is an example. When cooled to extremely low temperatures, helium exhibits behavior that is otherwise impossible in ordinary fluid - the superfluid can squeeze through pores as small as a molecule, and climb up and over the walls of a glass. It can even remain in motion years after a centrifuge containing it has stopped spinning. 

As the world population grows, one terrific science and technology solution to expensive and environmentally damaging fertilizers would be enabling all of the world's crops to take nitrogen from the air.

Nitrate pollution is a major problem as is the pollution of the atmosphere by ammonia and oxides of nitrogen. In addition, nitrate pollution is a health hazard and also causes oxygen-depleted 'dead zones' in our waterways and oceans. A recent study estimates that that the annual cost of damage caused by nitrogen pollution across Europe is between £60 billion and £280 billion per year.