There’s been a notable change in the tenor of conversations I’ve had with acquaintances when talking about the weather this summer. With a season marked by punishing heat and damaging floods in the U.S. and in other countries, the phrase “climate change” seems to be coming to people’s lips far quicker than it did in years past. It’s a reflection, I think, of people’s realization that global warming isn’t about the future but increasingly about our present.

Our environment and climate team has delivered a number of stories that provide you with not only the latest science but also the societal dimensions of extreme weather.

A perennial question for anybody intent on losing weight is how much to emphasize diet versus exercise. UCLA biobehavioral scientist Donald M. Lamkin digs into a number of rigorous studies that have examined the complex interplay between the two. In the end, he concludes that exercise has several health benefits but that people shouldn’t count on “outrunning a bad diet.” “There is a diminishing marginal return to exercise – you eventually take less weight off for the additional exercise you put in,” he writes.

The latest advances in biotechnology raise a number of challenging questions, and ground zero for those debates is often in assisted reproductive technologies. This article combines the views of Michigan State University developmental biologist Keith Latham and University of Virginia bioethicist Mary Faith Marshall to provide a tour of some of the issues these emerging procedures are raising and ways that society can begin to deal with them.

Also in this week’s science news:

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Martin LaMonica

Director of Editorial Projects and Newsletters
Outdoor workers face higher risks on hot, humid days. AP Photo/Swoan Parker

As heat records fall, how hot is too hot for the human body?

W. Larry Kenney, Penn State; Daniel Vecellio, Penn State; Rachel Cottle, Penn State; S. Tony Wolf, Penn State

The biggest risks aren’t always the biggest numbers on the thermometer – humidity gets dangerous faster than many people realize.
There isn’t a debate, however, on the health benefits of regular exercise. Maryna Terletska/Moment via Getty Images

Exercise may or may not help you lose weight and keep it off – here’s the evidence for both sides of the debate

Donald M. Lamkin, University of California, Los Angeles

Some researchers assert that the body responds to exercise by burning fewer calories when you’re not working out. Regardless of its effects on weight loss, exercise provides many health benefits.
A few days after successful fertilization, an embryo becomes a rapidly dividing ball of cells called a blastocyst. Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Promising assisted reproductive technologies come with ethical, legal and social challenges – a developmental biologist and a bioethicist discuss IVF, abortion and the mice with two dads

Keith Latham, Michigan State University; Mary Faith Marshall, University of Virginia

Scientists can create viable eggs from two male mice. In the wake of CRISPR controversies and restrictive abortion laws, two experts start a dialogue on ethical research in reproductive biology.

Female physicists aren’t represented in the media – and this lack of representation hurts the physics field

Carl Kurlander, University of Pittsburgh; Chandralekha Singh, University of Pittsburgh

The trailer for ‘Oppenheimer’ fails to include female physicists, which is indicative of a broader media trend that, if reversed, could lead to greater gender diversity in science.

Putting a price on exoskeleton assistance puts users in the driver’s seat of honing the tech

Elliott Rouse, University of Michigan

Asking users the dollar value of the costs and benefits of walking in exoskeletons is a better way of finding out how users feel about them than measuring calories saved.

Myths about will power and moral weakness keep people with opioid use disorder from receiving effective medications like methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone

Melissa S. Fry, Indiana University; Melissa Cyders, Indiana University

Prescription medications can help people with opioid use disorder avoid the risks of relapse and overdose. But stigma based on misperceptions about addiction limits their use.

Living near the fire – 500 million people worldwide have active volcanoes as neighbors

David Kitchen, University of Richmond

For some people, it’s a choice based on cultural beliefs or economic opportunities provided by the volcano. Other times it’s less a choice than the only option.