June 24 Last day to see the Picturing Science exhibit on high-tech imaging at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. See bit.ly/SFpicsci 05.16.13 | more >>

Fusion reactions It is not true that fusion packs the highest punch of any known energy-generating process (“Ignition failed,” SN: 4/20/13, p. 26). Matter-antimatter annihilation far exceeds it (Star Trek had it right back in the 1960s). I believe that under certain conditions, matter falling into a black hole can also yield more energy than fusion. Bobby Baum, Bethesda, Md. 05.16.13 | more >>

ENVIRONMENT See good news for birds in “So far, the great tit has coped with climate change.”

LIFE Fossils show how birds shifted their weight as they evolved. Read “Birds may have had to crouch before they could fly.” 05.16.13 | more >>

A new device now maps the body’s internal organs with sound waves.… Shaped like an oversized fountain pen, the transducer is held over the body above the internal organ to be studied. Short pulses of ultrasonic energy radiate out, and harmlessly bounce back from the internal surfaces. The time they take to return is analyzed, and results are recorded immediately on the instrument’s ... 05.16.13 | more >>

Entomologist Michael Raupp is enjoying Swarmageddon. The giant batch of cicadas began emerging from the ground in late April and will be heard in some northeastern states through June. 05.16.13 | more >>

Matt Houston/AP Photo

May 29 The World Science Festival opens in New York City. Learn more at bit.ly/SFwsf2013

May 31 Learn about wildflowers at Botany Washington at Seattle’s Burke Museum. See bit.ly/SFwf2013 05.02.13 | more >>

GENES & CELLSSee a roundup of some of the latest discoveries about China’s H7N9 virus in “New bird flu claims more victims.” 05.02.13 | more >>

The atmosphere whistles while scientists work. Series of whistles — short or long, going up scale or down — keep radio scientists busy deciphering their messages of the density of charged particles in the outer regions of the earth’s atmosphere.… Generated by lightning as it strikes the earth, the radio waves are propagated back and forth in the atmosphere of the earth, in a ... 05.02.13 | more >>

Ethics of humanized mice The recent stories “Human cells rev up mouse brains” (SN: 4/6/13, p. 16) and “Of mice and man” (SN: 3/23/13, p. 22) drove home to me that human-animal hybrids are now reality. In science fiction stories with such hybrids, a big part of the plot is the resultant ethical gray area: There are certain standards for animal research, and much stricter standards for ... 05.02.13 | more >>

DENVER — “I’m a little tired of the cold,” Geoff Hargreaves says with a sigh.

No surprise there: Hargreaves works in a deep freeze — 38 degrees Celsius below zero (−36° F). As curator of the National Ice Core Laboratory, his job is to keep ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland frozen. 05.02.13 | more >>

Gifford Wong/Wais

EARTH IN ACTION Learn about sinkhole science in Alex Witze’s column “Geologists develop weapons to combat that sinkhole feeling.” 04.18.13 | more >>

May 10 The 2013 Omnifest film festival opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. Catch daily screenings of five documentaries on the Omnitheater’s giant screen. See the schedule at bit.ly/OmniFest 04.18.13 | more >>

The first effective technique for measuring the ages of large numbers of stars like the sun has been developed. Providing a powerful research tool for astronomers, the new dating technique is based on relatively simple measurements of a single chemical element, lithium. The age calculations can be applied to both young and “ordinary” stars, as well as to the sun itself. The new method ... 04.18.13 | more >>

Give a man a fish and he’ll have a seafood supper. Teach a man engineering principles and he could start an aquafarm, devise a better net or fishing pole or maybe even come up with an entirely new way to combat chronic fishlessness. 04.18.13 | more >>

Future Scientist

Faux pas on fashion In “Students honored for research,” (SN: 4/6/13, p. 28), the female winner got singled out as “decked out in a lavender satin dress.” Didn’t Hillary Clinton recently point out to an interviewer that he asked her about her clothes, whereas he wouldn’t ask a man that? What are you trying to convey? Irena Swanson, Portland, Ore. 04.18.13 | more >>

BECOMING HUMAN Learn how people have been driving species to extinction since the Stone Age in a new column by Erin Wayman. 04.04.13 | more >>

April 18–28 More than 100 events at the Philadelphia Science Festival include a taxidermy demonstration, a CSI-themed “Nerd Nite” and a science carnival with hands-on activities. See bit.ly/SFphilly13 04.04.13 | more >>

The surgeon’s dream of transplanting organs from the dead to the living seems closer to reality. A man aged 54 died at Leeds (England) General Infirmary. One of his kidneys was removed quickly and placed in a 37-year-old man gravely ill because his kidneys had failed. Four months later the borrowed kidney was still functioning and the doctors were somewhat elated. For the donor and the ... 04.04.13 | more >>

Graduate student Craig Ulrich carried out his first published research project not in a university lab, but as a prison inmate. 04.04.13 | more >>

Benjamin Drummond

Pacing Alzheimer’s Science Stats “Alzheimer’s Advancing” (SN: 3/9/13, p. 4) reports a new analysis extrapolating from 2010 U.S. Census data that concludes Alzheimer’s disease will triple by 2050. Omitted in such an analysis is the accelerating advance of science and medicine over the next 40 years. The gloomy prediction makes little sense unless science stops short while the disease ... 04.04.13 | more >>

WASHINGTON — Sara Volz gasped in amazement when she heard her name called. The 17-year-old finalist had just been named the $100,000 grand-prize winner at the March 12 awards gala of the 2013 Intel Science Talent Search. 03.22.13 | more >>