Climate change mitigation could actually increase water shortage in some areas rather than reduce it, according to new research. The source of the problem is clear: greater demand for biofuels, intended to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, requires massive increases in irrigation in productive but relatively arid American farmland.

People associate wasps with memories of picnic invasions, BBQs under siege, and painful stings. There is a lot more to these much-maligned insects though, and with more than 100,000 different species, their life histories range from the quietly unobtrusive to the bizarre and gruesome. A new study in the Journal of Experimental Biology documents one such disturbing example of wasp larvae that takes control of their unfortunate spider hosts.

Until the early 1900s, scholars took it for granted that they could draw on any area of knowledge to inform their thinking on the major questions of the day. Medieval polymaths such as Hildegard of Bingen (medicine, linguistics, botany, art, philosophy and music) opened the door to Victorian scholars such as Temple Chevallier (astronomy, theology and maths) and Thomas Young (medicine, physics, music and Egyptology).

Most of us would choose to experience pleasure – however we may define it – as often as possible. The public health and criminal justice systems are set up by the government partly to shape how, when and where we find pleasure, so that we balance our enjoyment with working and paying taxes.

The more we learn about the problem of too much medicine and what’s driving it, the harder it seems to imagine effective solutions. Winding back unnecessary tests and treatments will require a raft of reforms across medical research, education and regulation.

But to enable those reforms to take root, we may need to cultivate a fundamental shift in our thinking about the limits of medicine.

It’s time to free ourselves from the dangerous fantasy that medical technology can deliver us from the realities of uncertainty, aging and death.

For children with autism, early intervention is critical. Therapies and education – especially in the first two years of life – can facilitate a child’s social development, reduce familial stress and ultimately improve quality of life.

But while we can reliably diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 24 months, most children are diagnosed much later.