Science24

The government spends much more to clean up damage from storms, tornadoes and drought than it does for helping prepare for such disasters, an analysis finds. WASHINGTON — Federal spending on community preparedness for extreme weather events is a fraction of the amount paid to clean up damage from storms, tornadoes and drought, according to an analysis of federal data.

Bureau of Land Management draws criticism from environmentalists over a plan to allow recreational vehicles on 40,000 acres that are home to desert animals and threatened plants. A new federal plan for managing the Imperial Sand Dunes calls for reopening to off-road vehicles 40,000 acres that have been closed since 2000, when the site became embroiled in a legal battle involving threatened plant species.

The move by the American Medical Assn. board means that one-third of adults and 17% of children in the U.S. have a medical condition that requires treatment. The American Medical Assn. voted Tuesday to declare obesity a disease, a move that effectively defines 78 million American adults and 12 million children as having a medical condition requiring treatment.

The City Council votes 11 to 1 for the ordinance, which would go into effect in 2014. Shoppers can bring reusable bags or pay stores 10 cents per paper bag. Attention Los Angeles shoppers: The plastic bag is disappearing from more than just the supermarket.

BioWatch, which has cost more than $1 billion so far, is designed to detect large-scale biological attacks. But Homeland Security officials say small-scale attacks are more likely to occur. WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Department planners have privately rejected a central premise of BioWatch, the nation's decade-old system for detecting biological weapons released into the air, according to government documents and testimony Tuesday at a congressional hearing.

A human voice has no special ring to the autistic brain because areas related to reward and emotional context are not well wired to its center of voice recognition, a Stanford University study has found.

Officials have been slow to spend state and federal funds to address tainted water, snarling small communities in red tape that has delayed fixes for years, advocates say. LANARE, Calif. — A bright metal drinking fountain is mounted on the wall in the community center of this tiny town west of Fresno. No one pays it any mind: The water is drawn from a well that has been contaminated with arsenic for years.

Few were disappointed in the Supreme Court's ruling that the natural human gene cannot be commercially owned. Just ask Angelina Jolie. In the course of our country's history, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has bestowed coveted protection on many strange and wondrous inventions: the three-legged pantyhose (in case one leg runs), the sealed, circular peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, the motorized ice cream cone.

For three days in 1963, Walt Arfons held the land speed record of 413.2 mph driving a jet engine-powered race car. Then his brother and bitter rival Art bested him on the Bonneville Salt Flats. When Walt Arfons first strapped a jet engine onto a hot rod, experts thought the car would melt, explode or spin wildly out of control.

In unanimous ruling, justices declare that human genes are a product of nature and cannot be patented and held for profit. WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled that human genes are a product of nature and cannot be patented and held for profit, a decision that medical experts said will lead to more genetic testing for cancers and other diseases and to lower costs for patients.

The company's Pegasus pipeline split in March, releasing 210,000 gallons into waterways and a neighborhood in the small town of Mayflower. WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and the state of Arkansas filed suit against the oil giant ExxonMobil over a March 29 pipeline rupture that spilled 210,000 gallons of oil into a residential neighborhood and waterways in the small town of Mayflower.

Critics accuse President Daniel Ortega of pushing through the sea-to-sea Nicaragua canal project to benefit his family and inner circle. MEXICO CITY — The project is of mind-boggling proportions: It would cost $40 billion, take a decade to complete and be more than twice the length of the mighty Panama Canal.

In testimony at the trial over the Jackson family's wrongful-death lawsuit, Randy Phillips said Michael wanted a 'larger than life' tour and a home to call his own. At the height of his career, Michael Jackson had it all. International fame. Grammy-winning records. Unimaginable wealth.

Sarah Murnaghan, 10, receives adult lungs in a transplant after a judge's ruling. Experts say the case leaves open complicated ethical issues. The emails arrived by the dozens. Then the hundreds. Then the thousands.

Chimpanzees would be reclassified as endangered, making it harder to use them in medical research. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday proposed extending tough new protections for chimpanzees in captivity, a shift that would place strict limits on primates' role as human surrogates in biomedical research.

Head of the California Public Utilities Commission says questions that must be addressed include how much to pay for power and how much is needed. The permanent closure of the San Onofre nuclear plant leaves significant unanswered questions about the future of the energy supply in Southern California, the head of the state's Public Utilities Commission acknowledged Tuesday.

(Phys.org) —A California-based company has a new kind of wheel for skateboards that delivers a novel shape and claims a special ride experience. This is the Shark Wheel, not circular, not square, but something more interesting. The wheels appear as square when in motion from a side view but the wheel geometry is more than that. The wheels feel circular to the rider, and viewing them along with more details may help to clear the mystique. The wheels are made of three strips each; these create a helical shape when they roll, and they form a sine wave pattern. When the wheels make contact with the ground, good things happen, say the team behind the wheels—the user gets speed, better grip, and a smoother ride.

Scientists have created promising gold-indium oxide nanoparticles through room-temperature oxidation.

Tribes and irrigators with senior rights formally call for water, meaning some southern Oregon ranchers must use less this summer. Some southern Oregon ranchers will have to reduce or completely shut down irrigation in the parched Upper Klamath Basin this summer as a result of a historic assertion of water rights by other users in the region.

The emergency contraceptive will be available over the counter with no age restrictions, the government announces, pending a judge's approval. The Obama administration dropped its long-standing opposition to over-the-counter sales of a controversial morning-after pill Monday and decided to permit consumers of any age to buy Plan B One-Step without a prescription.

Margarita Gomez, 68, who lived across from the school, collected cans on campus each morning and afternoon to make ends meet, always giving a portion to charity. Margarita Gomez walked the Santa Monica College campus each morning and afternoon, collecting cans and other recyclables to help pay the bills. She didn't have much money, but friends said she regularly saved some of the change she got for her cans and gave it to charity.

Physicians and therapists traditionally haven't collaborated much when treating the same patient, but the federal healthcare law is spurring a change. Many days, the sheer weight of Iszurette Hunter's clinical depression becomes more than she can lift. She clings to her bed in her South Los Angeles home. Important obligations slide away, including keeping appointments with doctors who are trying to control her asthma and high blood pressure.

At least 14 people have gone over falls along Yosemite National Park's Mist Trail in the last decade. None survived. YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — The two sisters boarded the morning bus to the Happy Isles trail head, ice cream cones in hand.

California could use $44.5 billion to fix aging water systems over the next two decades, according to an EPA assessment. Texas and New York are next in line. California could use $44.5 billion to fix aging water systems over the next two decades, according to a federal survey that placed the state at the top of a national list of water infrastructure needs.

The state's strict vehicle emissions standards have made a significant difference, a study finds. The amount of organic nitrates in Southern California's air chemistry has also changed for the better. Despite a threefold increase in people and cars in the last 50 years, California's strict vehicle emissions standards have managed to significantly clear the state's air, according to new research.

Plans call for City Dock 1, opened in 1913, to be converted into a nexus of laboratories and classrooms, fish hatcheries and berths for research vessels. On a recent weekday morning, Daniel Pondella strode along a century-old stretch of concrete pylons and shabby warehouses in San Pedro.

Collecting data inside brewing storms could lead to earlier tornado warnings. But researchers face federal limits on flying unmanned aircraft. With tornadoes, advance warning comes down to minutes. In Moore, Okla., on May 20, it was 16 minutes.

Tearing down San Onofre's two nuclear reactors will be a technically complex job completed over decades. It's likely Southern California Edison will first mothball the plant. Southern California Edison built San Onofre's two nuclear reactors in about nine years, but tearing them down will be a technically complex, multibillion-dollar job completed over decades.

Q&A with a scientist in Canada studying the world's oldest known water. Nearly 1.5 miles beneath Earth's surface in Canada, scientists have found pockets of water that have been isolated from the outside world for more than 1 billion years.

Officials say the predators have made a successful recovery, but activists say the action could create an open season on the animals. Saying that gray wolves are no longer in danger of extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans Friday to remove federal protections for the often-reviled animals nationwide and turn wolf management over to states.