Science

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Serge Haroche of France and David Wineland of the United States for their work on the "fundamental interactions between light particles and matter."

"The Nobel laureates have opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

At a recent academic conference, Michigan State University professor Natalie Phillips stole a glance around the room. A speaker was talking but the audience was fidgety. Some people were conferring among themselves, or reading notes. One person had dozed off.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced Monday in Sweden to two scientists: John Gurdon of England and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan. The two will share the prize for their landmark work on stem cells. These cells hold great promise for treating human disease but they are also a source of controversy.

The two scientists who won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine discovered that cells in our body have the remarkable ability to reinvent themselves. They found that every cell in the human body, from our skin and bones to our heart and brain, can be coaxed into forming any other cell.

The ice covering the Arctic Ocean was at a record low, in keeping with a sharp warming trend in the far north. At the same time, the amount of the ocean around Antarctica covered by sea ice hit a record high. It's winter in Antarctica when it's summer in the Arctic. But why in a warming world is wintertime ice growing?

British researcher John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan have won this year's Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology. They won "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent."

A big anniversary is coming in a little over two weeks, marking the creation of the world — at least as according to James Ussher.

Ussher, a 17th-century Irish bishop and scholar, used the Bible to pinpoint the first day of the world's creation as October 23, 4004 BC. His method is explained here.

If Ussher were alive today, then, he'd be readying to celebrate the world's 6016th birthday.

A small, fanged dinosaur called Pegomastax africanus was identified this week, more than half a century after its skeleton was dug up in South Africa. The dinosaur looked like a fierce cross between a chicken and a porcupine, and had long fangs which it used to eat plants and compete for mates. Pegomastax was a diminutive beast, standing less than two feet tall and weighing no more than a small house cat.

In California, state officials are planning a multibillion-dollar environmental restoration of the inland delta near San Francisco Bay. There's only one problem: No one knows what the landscape used to look like. Ninety-seven percent of the original wetlands are gone, so the state is turning to historians for help.

This detective story begins on a sunny day in a dry field of corn, about an hour east of San Francisco.