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DURBAN, South Africa--For the first time, all major nations--developed and developing--have agreed to a roadmap that would combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions via an "outcome with legal force" that would not come into effect before 2020.

Groupthink is a phenomenon in which the members of a group override their individuality in favor of unanimity. Scholars have ascribed bad decision making to groupthink, for example, in U.S. policy during the Vietnam War

The Advances section of Scientific American 's December issue helps parents find educational toys for the holidays, pushes cooking into the future, remembers Steve Jobs, takes a look at faster-than-light neutrinos, investigates turtle yawning and more. For those interested in learning more about the developments described in this section, a list of selected further reading follows.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sixteen thousand years ago, woolly mammoths , Beringian lions and short-faced bears roamed a grassy steppe that stretched across North America into Alaska. [More]

DURBAN, South Africa--The roughly 3,000 fossil fuel–fired power plants in North America--Canada, Mexico and the U.S.--emit 6 percent of global greenhouse gases , or nearly as much as all of the European Union. In fact, coal-fired power plants around the globe are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. [More]

As more and more content goes digital, people expect TV shows and movies to stream to their TVs, computers, tablets and smart phones. We want to pay for our entertainment once and then watch it anywhere, on any device.

Cooking is one big science experiment.

NASA has lost or misplaced more than 500 of the moon rocks its Apollo astronauts collected and brought back to Earth, according to a new agency report.

Paul Farmer: Wikimedia Commons/Billigan PHILADELPHIA Paul Farmer is used to uphill battles. After decades working to fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in impoverished areas of Haiti, the seemingly tireless doctor and anthropologist is now struggling to reassemble a health strategy for the country after last year’s earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak .

In a first, federal environment officials today scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing , concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely caused by the gas drilling process. [More]

DURBAN, South Africa When roughly 25,000 people descend on a city to talk climate change, you can expect at least two things: mountains of waste and copious emissions of the greenhouse gases that they’ve come to talk about so seriously. To offset the hundreds of thousands of tons of these lightweight gases emitted in the pursuit of a global climate treaty, recent such conferences have taken compensatory measures, such as subsidizing retrofits of Bangladeshi brick factories , so that ambassadorial emissions are offset by a reduction in pollution from kilns

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt adapted from the book, People Will Talk: The Surprising Science of Reputation , by John Whitfield (Wiley, 2011). Copyright

By Zo

It’s a rare kind of research that incites a frenzied panic before it’s even published. But it’s flu season, and influenza science has a way of causing a stir this time of year. [More]

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