Don't Bogart My Blog: Science Times: The Results of Your Genetic Test Are Reassuring. But That Can Change.

Plus: Genetic Sleuthing Helps a Kidnapped Girl Recover Her Identity —

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Monday, October 15, 2018

NYTimes.com/Science »

Brian Stauffer

The Results of Your Genetic Test Are Reassuring. But That Can Change.

By GINA KOLATA

Laboratories frequently "reclassify" genetic mutations. But there is no reliable system for telling patients or doctors that the results of their genetic tests are no longer valid.

A green sea turtle trapped in a gill net. Scientists estimate the global green turtle population has declined 50 to 70 percent since 1900.

Jeff Rotman/Science Source

Rescuing Sea Turtles From Fishermen's Nets

By AMY YEE

An organization on the coast of Kenya tries to persuade local residents to help return the trapped reptiles to the ocean, rather than sell their meat and shells for a living.

The Delta Fire burning in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California last month. When the fires eventually die, refugia will be essential to recovery of the forest.

Noah Berger/Associated Press

'Lifeboats' Amid the World's Wildfires

By CARL ZIMMER

Islands of greenery, called refugia, survive even the worst fires, sheltering species and renewing charred landscapes.

Curtis Rogers enjoys helping people solve family history puzzles. He inadvertently created a database that can now identify 60 percent of Americans of Northern European ancestry.

Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations

By HEATHER MURPHY

Fifteen murder and sexual assault cases have been solved since April with a single genealogy website. This is how GEDmatch went from a casual side project to a revolutionary tool.

Genetic Sleuthing Helps a Kidnapped Girl Recover Her Identity

By JONATHAN CORUM AND HEATHER MURPHY

This is the case that revealed to law enforcement that it's possible to figure out just about anyone's identify through their cousins' DNA.

• Most White Americans' DNA Can Be Identified Through Genealogy Databases

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on Sunday, and its contrails, seen here from Santa Barbara, were visible for miles.

David Mcnew/Getty Images

Lights, Camera, Blastoff: SpaceX Rockets Light Up California's Night Skies

By KENNETH CHANG

As SpaceX and other companies use the Vandenberg Air Force Base launch hub near Los Angeles more often, the region can expect more spectacles like the one visible on Sunday.

Beer enthusiasts at Munich's annual Oktoberfest beer festival in September. A particularly bad drought might double the price of a bottle of beer in Ireland. In the Czech Republic, it could be six or seven times as expensive.

Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Heat and Drought Could Threaten World Beer Supply

By JAMES GORMAN

A new study says a warming globe will be bad news for barley, an essential ingredient in the world's most popular alcoholic beverage.

K. McDole et al.

Watch This Blob of Cells Become an Embryo in High-Resolution

By EMILY BAUMGAERTNER

Researchers developed a new microscope that traces embryonic cell movement in real time, sketching a virtual map of how organ systems develop.

Some plants in Madagascar may have evolved fruit colors so that they can be seen by lemurs that are red-green colorblind.

Andy Davies/Science Source

Plants Can't Talk. But Some Fruits Say 'Eat Me' to Animals.

By JOANNA KLEIN

Two national parks in Uganda and Madagascar presented researchers with a natural experiment to understand how plants have adapted to appeal to animals that spread their seeds.

The writer, an editor on The Times's Culture desk, and her family watching Neil Armstrong land on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Jean K. Timmons

Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon Nearly 50 Years Ago. Do You Remember That Day?

By SUSANNA TIMMONS

We want to hear your memories of watching the first man step onto the moon.

Scientists analyzing Senator Elizabeth Warren's genome assigned 95 percent of her ancestry to Europe. But five pieces of DNA stood out as exceptions, suggesting a Native American ancestor who lived at least six generations ago.

Jonathan Bachman/Reuters

Elizabeth Warren Has a Native American Ancestor. Does That Make Her Native American?

By CARL ZIMMER

The senator's genetic analysis was sound, scientists said. But whether Ms. Warren may claim a cultural kinship with Native Americans is a very different question.

The Soyuz spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on Thursday.

Russian Rocket Fails, and 2 Astronauts Make Safe Emergency Return

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA, KENNETH CHANG AND ANDREW E. KRAMER

New York City's girthy, cunning rats mostly eluded five feral cats, motion-sensitive cameras showed.

Cats v. Rats? In New York, the Rats Win

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Scientists expected bees to gradually cease buzzing as the sky darkened during an eclipse. Instead, they stopped altogether.

The Moon Eclipsed the Sun. Then the Bees Stopped Buzzing.

By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR

Q&A

Are there more varieties of beans than there used to be?

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Climate Change

President Trump before leaving the White House on Monday to survey damage from Hurricane Michael.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Fact-Check

'I Don't Know That It's Man-Made,' Trump Says of Climate Change. It Is.

By LISA FRIEDMAN

On "60 Minutes," President Trump backed off his claim that global warming is a hoax. But he also made several new assertions unsupported by science.

Monica Jorge for The New York Times

After Nobel in Economics, William Nordhaus Talks About Who's Getting His Pollution-Tax Ideas Right

By CORAL DAVENPORT

A few governments—notably, parts of Canada and South Korea—have adapted his idea in ways that not only show signs of working, but also reframe it not as a tax, but as a windfall for taxpayers.

The elevated house that the owners call the Sand Palace, on 36th Street in Mexico Beach, Fla., came through Hurricane Michael almost unscathed.

Johnny Milano for The New York Times

Among the Ruins of Mexico Beach Stands One House, Built 'for the Big One'

By PATRICIA MAZZEI

Hurricane Michael wrecked every other beachfront house on the block, but one came through the storm nearly pristine, as if protected by grace. How did it survive?

A storm chaser returned to collect his things after debris collapsed on his car Wednesday in Panama City, Fla.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

The Hurricanes, and Climate-Change Questions, Keep Coming. Yes, They're Linked.

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

Scientists say the links between global warming and hurricanes are real, although it's still too early to say what the climate-change impact has been on Hurricane Michael.

• Why Hurricane Michael's Power Caught Forecasters Off Guard

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Health

A black-necked spitting cobra, whose bite can blind or kill a person. Many treatments for snakebite, like sucking out the venom, have been discredited.

Avalon/Photoshot, via Alamy

Tiny Nanoparticles to Treat a Huge Problem: Snakebites

By DONALD G. MCNEIL JR.

Snakes kill or cripple 500,000 people a year, but antivenins are costly and rare in poor countries. Now scientists are testing injectable nanoparticles that neutralize venom.

Gracia Lam

Personal Health

Should You Have Knee Replacement Surgery?

By JANE E. BRODY

Some experts question whether the surgery is being done too often or too soon on patients who have not adequately explored less invasive approaches.

Elizabeth Shepherd, left, and Dr. Ronald Adelman, a geriatrician at Weill Cornell Medical School, with second-year medical students.

Bess Adler for The New York Times

Every Older Patient Has a Story. Medical Students Need to Hear It.

By PAULA SPAN

At more than 20 medical schools in the United States, students are getting an earful — about life, about perspective — from healthy seniors.

Matt Chase

Kurt Eichenwald's Memoir of a 'Mind Unraveled'

By DAPHNE MERKIN

A journalist's traumatic story of epilepsy and his struggle to have it treated seriously, and properly, in his college years.

Aart-Jan Venema

How to Harness Your Anxiety

By ALICIA H. CLARK

Research shows that we can tame anxiety to use it as a resource.

Anna Parini

Helping Pediatricians Care for Transgender Children

By PERRI KLASS, M.D.

A new statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics tries to guide doctors and dispel myths about growing up with gender identity questions.

Nurses rallying for Medicare for All in Washington in 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Medicare. Three years later, the idea has a lot of support.

Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

Is Medicare for All the Answer to Sky-High Administrative Costs?

By AUSTIN FRAKT

It would save money compared with private plans, but would also probably shed features that some might miss.

Dr. Piero Anversa, affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, above, and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, departed in 2015 following questions about his research.

Hattanas Kumchai, via Getty Images

Harvard Calls for Retraction of Dozens of Studies by Noted Cardiologist

By GINA KOLATA

Some 31 studies by Dr. Piero Anversa contain fabricated or falsified data, officials concluded. Dr. Anversa popularized the idea of stem cell treatment for damaged hearts.