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Sixty-one-year-old Diana Nyad hopes to make history this summer by becoming the first person to swim 166 kilometers of shark-infested ocean between Cuba and the Florida Keys--without a shark cage. Nyad tried the crossing in 1978, swimming in a cage pulled by a boat. Tall waves, strong currents and bad weather kept her from succeeding.

Science Online London 2011 is the fourth annual meeting of people interested in the way the Web has transformed scientific research and communication.

Nobel Laureate Avram Hershko, who determined cellular mechanisms for breaking down proteins, talks about his research in a conversation recorded at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany. [More]

Ask someone where they are from and most likely they will tell you their hometown, perhaps even a specific neighborhood. Put the same question to physicist Brian Cox and you get an entirely different response--one that involves the recycling of atoms brought together from the far reaches of the universe. Cox likes to remind people that every atom of their body used to be part of something else, and will become part of something new in the end.

By Matt Kaplan of Nature magazine Analysis of fossil traits suggests that Archaeopteryx is not a bird at all. [More]

When he retired after 26 years as an investigator with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of the Inspector General, George Mulley thought his final report was one of his best. Mulley had spent months looking into why a pipe carrying cooling water at the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois had rusted so badly that it burst. His report cited lapses by a parade of NRC inspectors over six years and systemic weaknesses in the way the NRC monitors corrosion.

SHANGHAI -- For Jin Liang, a typical Chinese who watches his utility bills carefully, each scorching hot summer day posed a dilemma: Should he switch on his air conditioner, or keep it off to cool the impact on his wallet? But his dilemma faded away this year after Jin moved into a new apartment. It features magical materials that allow him to comfortably turn off the air conditioner and yet stop sweating

Several Scientific American staffers recently flew out to Mountain View, Calif.

When my first child was born, I was very happy, as many moms are, but also a little on edge. [More]

LONDON (Reuters) - People from northern parts of the world have evolved bigger brains and larger eyes to help them to cope with long, dark winters and dim skies, scientists said on Wednesday. Researchers from Oxford University studied the eye sockets and brain capacity of 55 human skulls from 12 different populations across the world and found that the further human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains. [More]

Hospitals might not always be the happiest places on Earth. But some might get a little happier, with help from Disney. [More]

Antibiotics don’t work against viruses. But doctors sometimes give antibiotics to patients who have what turns out to be a viral infection. Which adds to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance

By Lauren Keiper BOSTON (Reuters) - Rising sea waters may threaten U.S. coastal cities later this century, while the Midwest and East Coast are at high risk for intense storms, and the West could see compromised water supplies

By Christine Stebbins CHICAGO (Reuters) - Rich countries grabbing farmland in Africa to feed their growing populations can leave rural populations there without land or jobs and make the continent's hunger problem more severe, an environmental think tank said on Tuesday. [More]

By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal officials seized roughly a ton of ivory in one of the largest U.S. seizures on record and arrested the owner of an African art store accused of smuggling carved elephant tusks into the United States, authorities said on Tuesday