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Scientists have long labored to explain what appeared to be a slowdown in global warming that began at the start of this century as, at the same time, heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide were soaring. The slowdown, sometimes inaccurately described as a halt or hiatus, became a major talking point for people critical of climate science.

When adjustments are made to compensate for recently discovered problems in the way global temperatures were measured, the slowdown largely disappears, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared in a scientific paper published Thursday. And when the particularly warm temperatures of 2013 and 2014 are averaged in, the slowdown goes away entirely, the agency said.

“The notion that there was a slowdown in global warming, or a hiatus, was based on the best information we had available at the time,” said Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, a NOAA unit in Asheville, N.C. “Science is always working to improve.”

What is wrong with the economies of the West—and with economics?

With little or no effective policy initiative giving a lift to the less advantaged, the jarring market forces of the past four decades—mainly the slowdowns in productivity that have spread over the West and, of course, globalization, which has moved much low-wage manufacturing to Asia—have proceeded, unopposed, to drag down both employment and wage rates at the low end. The setback has cost the less advantaged not only a loss of income but also a loss of what economists call inclusion—access to jobs offering work and pay that provide self-respect.

The classical idea of political economy has been to let wage rates sink to whatever level the market takes them, and then provide everyone with the “safety net” of a “negative income tax,” unemployment insurance, and free food, shelter, clothing, and medical care

Some questions you ask because you want the right answer. Others are valuable because no answer is right; the payoff comes from the range of attempts.

That is the diversity of views about the types of historical breakthroughs that matter, with a striking consensus on whether the long trail of innovation recorded here is now nearing its end.

The clearest example of consensus was the first item on the final compilation, the printing press

Ripped musclesThe metabolism is every drop of chemistry needed to keep the body going. And the bigger the body - whether that is ripped muscles or too much belly fat - the more energy it will take to run.

The study, published in the journal Science, found four phases of metabolic life:birth to age one, when the metabolism shifts from being the same as the mother's to a lifetime high 50% above that of adults a gentle slowdown until the age of 20, with no spike during all the changes of pubertyno change at all between the ages of 20 and 60a permanent decline, with yearly falls that, by 90, leave metabolism 26% lower than in mid-life

Other surprises came from what the study did not find. There was no metabolic surge during either puberty or pregnancy and no slowdown around the menopause.

that 2014 was the warmest year since careful record keeping began in 1880.

2010 and 2014 are basically tied for warmest year.

The two agencies use slightly different methods, so they have different readings for the difference between 2014 and the previous warmest year, 2010, with N.O.A.A. putting it at 0.07 degrees Fahrenheit (0.04 degrees Celsius), while NASA got 0.036 degrees (0.02 Celsius) — which this analysis says is well “within uncertainty of measurement.”

fresh look at the way sea temperatures are measured has led government scientists to make a surprising claim: The puzzling apparent hiatus in global surface warming never really happened

Mainstream scientists have struggled to explain to the public how climate change can be getting worse if the warming of the planet's surface slowed at the turn of the century. Their various theories have chalked it up to dust and ash blasted into the sky by volcanic eruptions, a rare period of calm in the solar cycle, and heat absorption by the Pacific Ocean and other waters.

“I don't find this analysis at all convincing,” said Judith Curry, a climatologist at Georgia Tech who argues that natural variability in climate cycles dominates the impact of industrial emissions and other human actions. “While I'm sure this latest analysis from NOAA will be regarded as politically useful for the Obama administration, I don't regard it as a particularly useful contribution to our scientific understanding of what is going on.”

The state can successfully push science; there is no sense denying it. The Manhattan Project and the Apollo program remind us of this possibility. Free markets may not fund as much basic research as needed.

But in practice, we all sense that such gloating belongs to a very different time. Most of our political leaders are not engineers or scientists and do not listen to engineers or scientists.

Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse.

Often, pronouncements about either subject are accompanied by the politician’s mea culpa: “I’m not a scientist, but ... ”

It’s the butthat has caused heartburn among scientists, many of whom say such skepticism has an impact on public policy.

“They’ve been using it as if they can dismiss the view of scientists, which doesn’t make any sense,”

Regnerus relies on the concept of sexual economics, in which mating is seen as a marketplace. In this view, women are gatekeepers to a limited, highly desired product: sex. In exchange for access to this product, men proffer commitment, fidelity and resources.

Regnerus believes that the sharp drop in the value of sex has shifted the market, even its more conservative parts, leading to a massive overall slowdown in the creation of committed relationships like marriage, in large part because men see less of a need to make themselves into appealing long-term partners.

among younger women, especially those who want that sort of traditional relationship, there increasingly seems to be a vague dissatisfaction with the state of things. Why, when women have gained so much power, are we so often at impasse in our romantic relationships? Why do men our age seem so unmotivated to grow up and so ambivalent about committing? As uncomfortable as it may be to contemplate, the shifts this book describes may provide an inkling of an explanation.

An experiment by Japanese researchers revealed how just a few distracted walkers really can throw off the movements of a whole crowd.

And so it might not come as too much of a surprise to learn that a person staring down at a phone, lost in a private world while walking, really messes with the vibe, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

When those students were placed at the back of their group, the distraction did not affect how the groups moved past each other. But when the distracted walkers were at the front of the pack, there was a dramatic slowdown in the whole group’s walking pace. It also took longer for clear lanes to form.

As commuters stayed home in 2020 and airplanes remained on the ground, the nationwide slowdown led to a sizable drop in heat-trapping emissions. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell by 10 percent, the largest annual drop since World War II

Still, the climate diet isn't likely to stick.

By the end of the year, Americans were already back to driving and flying more.

sweeping series of measures that pushed the 106-year old central bank deeper into uncharted territory.

central bank said it will buy unlimited amounts of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to keep borrowing costs at rock-bottom levels -- and to help ensure chaotic markets function properly. It also set up programs to ensure credit flows to corporations as well as state and local governments.

unnerved investors are by the pandemic, the Fed’s moves failed to spark anything beyond a brief rally in stocks and corporate bonds Monday after weeks of staggering losses

As odds of a global recession rise, governments and central banks around the world are racing to fend off the economic damage from the spread of the coronavirus. The toll has already landed hard on jittery financial markets. Stocks continued to sell off on Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 969 points, or about 3.6%, as investors fled stocks. Companies have shut factories, canceled conferences and drastically scaled back employee travel.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate on Thursday gave final passage to a roughly $8 billion spending package to provide medical supplies in hard-hit areas and pay for vaccine research. President Trump has said he will sign the bill. Despite such measures, many economists now say growth is likely to slow considerably this year — if not contract altogether.

Goldman Sachs projected on Sunday that because of the coronavirus, the U.S. economy would grow by an anemic 0.9% during the first three months of 2020 and would flatline during the second quarter.