Don't Bogart My Blog: Science Times: An Archaeological Puzzle on the Danube

Plus: How Flat Earthers Nearly Derailed a Space Photo Book —

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Tuesday, August 20, 2019

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Quartz sandstone sculptures from 6300-5900 B.C.E. on display at the Museum Lepenski Vir. Mickey Mystique, via Wikimedia Commons

An Archaeological Puzzle on the Danube

By JAMES GORMAN

Unique sculptures date from the historical moment when two peoples and two cultures met on the banks of a section of the river, now known as the Iron Gates.

Benedict Redgrove

How Flat Earthers Nearly Derailed a Space Photo Book

By HEATHER MURPHY

What a photographer's struggle to raise money for his book of images tells us about Facebook and conspiracy theorists.

All throughout Florida and abroad, citrus greening disease has decimated citrus groves, yet no cure has been discovered. In April, unpicked oranges in Hardee County just before the harvest.

Michael Adno for The New York Times

Spraying Antibiotics to Fight Citrus Scourge Doesn't Help, Study Finds

By ANDREW JACOBS

Researchers found spraying oxytetracycline on orange trees didn't halt a devastating infection called citrus greening, but a more expensive method — injecting the trunks — holds some promise.

What Makes a Red Sky at Night (and at Morning)

By RANDALL MUNROE

The cartoonist behind the strip XKCD explains how the skies blush and why sailors care.

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed 13 warnings for rotation on cigarette packages. Major tobacco companies defeated earlier efforts by the F.D.A. to impose graphic warnings years ago.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

The F.D.A.'s New Cigarette Warnings Are Disturbing. See for Yourself.

By SHEILA KAPLAN

Weakened by court battles with major tobacco companies, the F.D.A. has softened its depictions of smoking-related illnesses required for cigarette packs.

WATCH 'THE MEMO' ON 'THE WEEKLY'

Barry Meier reports on a confidential government document that had the potential to change the trajectory of the opioid crisis, but it was hidden from the public. Watch The Times's new TV show, "The Weekly," at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday on FX and starting Monday anytime on Hulu. Here's the trailer.

Electron microscope images of diamonds from the Juína area of Brazil.

Suzette Timmerman

In Super-Deep Diamonds, Glimmers of Earth's Distant Past

By JOANNA KLEIN

We can't yet dig to the center of the Earth. But diamonds from far below ground offer tantalizing hints of what's down there.

A couple of male king penguins face the sunlight, as the one on the right incubates an egg under a flap of skin at their enclosure in the Berlin Zoo.

Omer Messinger/EPA, via Shutterstock

Gay Penguins, and Their Hope for a Baby, Have Enchanted Berlin

By LIAM STACK

Two male penguins at Zoo Berlin have adopted an egg, delighting Germans and raising the prospect of the zoo's first penguin chick in almost two decades.

An iceberg in Antarctica. An analysis of snow from the past 20 years revealed an abundance of iron-60, an isotope associated with supernovas.

Costfoto/Barcroft Images, via Barcroft Media, via Getty Images

A Supernova Was Hiding in Antarctica's Snow

By KATHERINE KORNEI

Researchers melted and analyzed 1,100 pounds of snow from the region. They found traces of cosmic dust, some of it created by nearby stellar explosions.

Blanche D'Anastasi

She Studies Sea Snakes by the Seafloor

By DEVI LOCKWOOD

Sea snakes are the most diverse group of marine reptiles in the world, but they are poorly understood and threatened by development. Blanche D'Anastasi is among the scientists working to save them.

Dr. Kary B. Mullis in 1995, two years after receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for coming up with a better way of analyzing DNA.

Kary B. Mullis, 74, Dies; Found a Way to Analyze DNA and Won Nobel

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

Eric Swanson, the owner of East Coast Falcons, released a falcon, one of the birds of prey that are being used to frighten gulls in Ocean City, N.J.

Flying Assassins Are Called In to Combat Aggressive Gulls

By NICK CORASANITI

An Anelosimus studiosus spider in the Everglades.

How to Survive a Hurricane as a Spider: Be Aggressive

By KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS

Q&A

Sometimes in the woods I come across a swarm of butterflies hovering over a patch of earth. What's going on?

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Climate Change

A forest elephant in the Wonga-Wongue Reserve in Gabon in 2012. There are fewer than 100,000 forest elephants left in Africa; more than half of them are thought to live in Gabon.

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

The Thick Gray Line: Forest Elephants Defend Against Climate Change

By RACHEL NUWER

If the species is wiped out by poachers, Africa's vast rain forest will lose 7 percent of its carbon storage ability, scientists estimate.

Cooling off at the Yards Park in Washington D.C. on July 20, when the high reached 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

Eric Thayer/Reuters

NOAA Data Confirms July Was Hottest Month Ever Recorded

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

Data from federal researchers confirmed that July was the hottest month on record, edging out the previous record-holder, July 2016.

• Iceland Mourns Loss of a Glacier by Posting a Warning About Climate Change

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Health

A Coalition for Life staff member, near the entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in May, in Missouri.

Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

Planned Parenthood Refuses Federal Funds Over Abortion Restrictions

By PAM BELLUCK

Facing a Trump administration rule that forbids referrals for abortion, the organization decided to reject federal funds for family planning for low-income women.

Dr. Pauline Howell tended to a patient suffering from a particularly virulent strain of tuberculosis at Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital in Johannesburg.

Joao Silva/The New York Times

Scientists Discover New Cure for the Deadliest Strain of Tuberculosis

By DONALD G. MCNEIL JR.

Once, a diagnosis of extensively drug-resistant TB meant quick death. A three-drug regimen cures most patients in just months.

Gracia Lam

Personal Health

Getting the Right Care for Painful Autoimmune Conditions

By JANE E. BRODY

A corticosteroid can quickly relieve symptoms of both polymyalgia rheumatica and temporal arteritis. But a delay could cause vision loss, a stroke or even death.