Editor's Note: Scientific American's George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels and taking other steps to save energy in 60-Second Solar. Read his introduction here and see all posts here.

This year, I’ve been spared the annual ritual of lugging the window air conditioners out of the closet. Not only has it been one of the mildest summers on record in the New York area, but our house has a spiffy new cool white roof, so our attic is no longer the hothouse it once was. Reflective window blinds, compact fluorescent and LED bulbs, and an attic fan have also helped to keep the house cool. In past summers, there usually came some days in August where we vowed to upgrade to a whole-house air conditioning system, but so far we’ve just sweated them out.

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What slithers like a snake, swims like a fish and lives in the Sahara? The sandfish lizard, of course. This small reptile, which measures just 10 centimeters long, can swim through the sand dunes at up to 15 centimeters per second. But how does it do it? [More]

Childhood adversity is associated diminished activation in the regions the brain that anticipate reward, according to a new study. Using fMRI, researchers examined the brain activity of individuals who had experienced childhood abuse that met state guidelines for maltreatment, and found weaker responses to reward-predicting cues in left hemisphere regions of the basal ganglia.

In his discussion of accelerated motion on page 60 of "The Meaning of Relativity," Albert Einstein made an approximation that allowed him to develop the theory of relativity further. Einstein apparently never had the opportunity to check his original approximation. Now, a physicist has uncovered some clues about the basis of Einstein's theories and presented a more general approximation, which may better link quantum physics with classical physics.

Individuals who have higher levels of education and who are more impaired by Parkinson's disease appear to require treatment for their symptoms earlier than do other patients.

Amid reports that swine flu viruses are developing the ability to shrug off existing antiviral drugs, scientists are reporting a first-of-its kind discovery that could foster a new genre of antivirals that sidestep resistance problems.

New research calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. This discovery may undercut the rationale behind numerous large-scale genetic studies conducted over the last 15 years.

Bone fractures might heal faster if the patient is injected with medications. This is the outcome of a unique study of 102 women with wrist fractures. This is the first study that shows that fracture healing in humans can be accelerated with medication.

In October of 1898, The New York Times reported on an American jockey named James Forman “Tod” Sloan who had begun riding his horse “crouched well forward on his mount’s neck.” The Times further noted that Sloan had "astonished the English turfmen and jockeys not only by his style of riding which is peculiar to him, but also by his great success.”

Now, more than a century after Sloan debuted the crouching technique, scientists have figured out how the now-standard riding posture boosts performance. [More]

Medication prescribers correctly identified fewer than half of drug pairs with potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions. The researchers mailed a questionnaire to 12,500 U.S. prescribers who were selected based on a history of prescribing drugs associated with known potential for drug-drug interaction. Prescribers were primarily physicians, physicians' assistants and nurse practitioners.