People comparing current crime rates with those of past decades tend to agree that today’s numbers should be lower. And new research points to a relatively easy way to do that: Help teens get more sleep.

Lack of sleep is only one risk factor that may affect an individual’s odds of becoming a criminal, Raine said, noting genetic and social factors. “But sleep is something we can do something about,” he said.

Just when you thought the situation couldn’t get much worse for the Great Barrier Reef comes news that devastating coral bleaching will almost certainly increase significantly — again — in the coming months.

Temperatures across Earth’s mantle are about 60 degrees Celsius higher than previously thought, a new experiment suggests. Such toasty temperatures would make the mantle runnier than earlier research suggested, a development that could help explain the details of how tectonic plates glide on top of the mantle, geophysicists report in the March 3 Science.

When the federal minimum wage first became law in 1938, it was 25 cents. Adjusted for inflation, that would be worth $4.19 today. Scroll over the chart to see historical minimum wage amounts, and their corresponding values in today’s dollars.

Businesses will be asked to submit their proposals to design and build prototype wall structures near the United States border with Mexico starting next week, according to the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency.

Trump has said that the entire wall will cost $10 billion, citing an estimate that he received during the campaign from the National Precast Concrete Association. But other estimates have put the cost at as much as $25 billion, according to a report from Bernstein Research, which tracks materials costs.

"Since November 8th, Election Day, the Stock Market has posted $3.2 trillion in GAINS and consumer confidence is at a 15 year high. Jobs!" Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

The bottom line is: Trump needs a lot of factors to fall into place to truly hypercharge growth. It's possible it happens. Trump has a track record of defying the odds. But there's also a plausible scenario where the bullish dreams of Wall Street don't quite translate into a true economic renaissance.

The stock market reached yet another new high on Wednesday, the latest development to make a mockery of what savvy economic commentators thought they knew about the world.

So if tax cuts, more military spending and other Trumpian policies add to deficits at a time the economy is already running at full blast, rising prices and rising rates are exactly what we would expect to see.

Thirsty? Grab a bottle of water. You’ll have plenty of company: For the first time, bottled water is expected to outsell soft drinks in the United States this year.

But how do all those water bottles affect the planet?

SAN FELIPE, Mexico — In the shallow sea waters of the Gulf of California swims a porpoise that few have seen, its numbers dwindling so fast that its very existence is now in peril.

“If you can’t remove the threats, the population keeps declining,” Dr. Turvey said. “You don’t have time for complacency.”

On Wednesday, researchers reported that these may be the oldest fossils ever discovered, the remains of bacteria thriving on Earth not long, geologically speaking, after the very birth of the planet. If so, they offer evidence that life here got off to a very early start.

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state’s spending on public education was unconstitutionally low, compounding the budget problems that have plagued the state under Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax-slashing conservative agenda.

WASHINGTON — The iconic blossoming cherry trees that ring the Tidal Basin here have symbolized the arrival of spring for nearly a century. This year, they will be one more sign of wacky and warming weather.

The lawyers tasked with policing Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest are grappling with an oversight system that’s disjointed and ineffective -- and one they say is mostly unnecessary.

The only thing you leave this world with is your reputation,” he said. “I’m very concerned about my reputation. But I’m also committed to making sure I can do it in the right way. I’m confident I can do it in a way that doesn’t diminish my reputation or the reputation of the president.”

President Trump’s speech on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference followed a familiar pattern: Blast the news media as “dishonest,” repeat a string of falsehoods and wrap up by promising to change the status quo.

Mr. Trump mocked election polls for being wrong.

This is misleading. Mr. Trump, who trailed Hillary Clinton in major national polls leading up to the election, ended up winning the Electoral College. But most of the polls Mr. Trump referred to actually reflected the popular vote total within the margin of error.

7 New Planets, and the Possibility of Life in Another System

Economists Have Been Demoted in Washington. That’s a Bad Idea.

Academic economists have received a demotion. The Trump administration has been filling out its cabinet and, unlike in the Obama administration, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers will not be part of it.

Yes, academics fret about what their peers think, just as other people do. In this case, it’s a good thing. It is important to have someone in the cabinet who is more interested in protecting academic integrity than in protecting business interests or the president’s image.

I was not a lab rat

Over the past few months, we’ve seen Donald Trump lower, again and again, the bar for political discourse. All the while, though, he’s been lowering the scientific bar, too. In May, for instance, while speaking to an audience of West Virginia coal miners, Trump complained that regulations designed to protect the ozone layer had compromised the quality of his hair spray. Those regulations, he continued, were misguided, because hair spray is used mainly indoors, and so can have no effect on the atmosphere outside. No wonder Hillary Clinton felt the need to include, in her nomination speech, the phrase “I believe in science.”

The positions taken by Trump and the Republicans have consequences beyond science itself. Essentially, they are betting that, for a significant portion of the country, empirical reality doesn’t matter; they are also signalling that empirical reasoning won’t be the basis of their public policy. Today, of course, we face global challenges such as climate change, which are more urgent than any we have ever confronted. These challenges require a sober assessment of reality. When science is distorted on the campaign trail, it may produce applause lines. But if those distortions lead to bad public policy, the quality of people’s lives will suffer.

In a 1946 essay, George Orwell wrote that “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” It’s not just that we’re easily misled. It’s that, by “impudently twisting the facts,” we can convince ourselves of “things which we know to be untrue.” A whole society, he wrote, can deceive itself “for an indefinite time,” and the only check on that mass delusion is that “sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality.” Science is one source of that solid reality. The Trump Administration seems determined to keep it at bay, and the consequences for society and the environment will be profound.

It is everyone who is concerned about our freedom, health, welfare, and security as a nation—and everyone who is concerned about the planetary legacy we leave for our children.

The Mistrust of Science

The scientific orientation has proved immensely powerful. It has allowed us to nearly double our lifespan during the past century, to increase our global abundance, and to deepen our understanding of the nature of the universe. Yet scientific knowledge is not necessarily trusted. Partly, that’s because it is incomplete. But even where the knowledge provided by science is overwhelming, people often resist it—sometimes outright deny it. Many people continue to believe, for instance, despite massive evidence to the contrary, that childhood vaccines cause autism (they do not); that people are safer owning a gun (they are not); that genetically modified crops are harmful (on balance, they have been beneficial); that climate change is not happening (it is).

People are prone to resist scientific claims when they clash with intuitive beliefs. They don’t see measles or mumps around anymore. They do see children with autism. And they see a mom who says, “My child was perfectly fine until he got a vaccine and became autistic.”