Science News

Acupuncture or counselling plus usual care 'may improve' depression symptoms.

Researchers have demonstrated a strong association between the FTO (fat and obesity) gene and hip fracture in women. While the gene is already well known to affect diabetes and obesity, this is the first study to show th...

When individuals with psychopathy imagine others in pain, brain areas necessary for feeling empathy and concern for others fail to become active and be connected to other important regions involved in affective processin...

In evolutionary terms, smell is among the oldest of the senses. New research shows how anxiety or stress can rewire the brain, linking centers of emotion and olfactory processing, to make typically benign smells malodoro...

A new study suggests that measuring levels of miR-31 in tumor tissue might accurately determine whether the most common form of lung cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes. The findings could lead to improvements in the...

Physics engines may form the backbone of many video games, but very rarely does physics take center stage in a game's plot. In my experience, most educational games that aim to teach physics lack the immersion and fun fa...

An intriguing study may provide a powerful new tool in the quiver of forensic scientists attempting to determine the time of death in cases involving human corpses: A microbial clock.

The first large study to focus specifically on the effects of smoking after colorectal surgery found that smoking boosts the risk of complications like infection and pneumonia after some of the most common colorectal pro...

Clinicians should be extra vigilant when prescribing antidepressants as they could pose a risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers have warned. A systematic review showed that people taking antidepressants are at a higher ri...

A new study has found a molecular mechanism that may explain the connection between mechanical ventilation and hippocampal damage in ICU patients.

After a decade of rapidly growing industrial use, unimaginably tiny particles surround us everywhere, every day, in everything we do. Used in the manufacturing of cosmetics, clothing, paints, food, drug delivery systems ...

-- Russian scientist leads team in particle discovery -- Crowd-sourced computing platform reaches one trillion events -- ATLAS Limits On Dark Matter -- At the cutting edge of science

The focus of eating disorder research has largely been on the state of patients' thoughts, beliefs and emotions, with historically little focus on how current and past body weights contribute. A flurry of studies suggest...

Pancreatic cancer ranks as the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and is one of the most deadly forms of cancer, due to its resistance to standard treatments with chemotherapy and radiation therap...

Men who have low testosterone levels may have a slightly elevated risk of developing or dying from heart disease, according to a recent study.

Adult survivors of childhood cancers who underwent certain chemotherapy treatments or kidney surgery had worse kidney function that did not recover over time. Because of this, they may be at higher risk for premature ren...

A biological ability to compensate for the body's reduced response to insulin may explain why women typically develop heart disease 10 years later than men.

It is estimated that over a third of the new cancer cases expected to occur in the U.S. in 2013 will be related to overweight or obesity, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition. Thanks to the work of one researcher, we ...

While calcium supplements noticeably improved bone health in postmenopausal women, vitamin D supplements did not reduce bone turnover, according to a recent study.

The supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy may have flared up some 2 million years ago, around the time our ancestors learned to walk upright     

All the latest on newscientist.com: how disgust shaped human evolution, robo-fishmonger, what the Higgs has done for us, pretty plankton and more     

For the first time, scientists have found that in people with chronic moderate-severe traumatic brain injury, atrophy (shrinkage) in the brain may be countered by participating in environmental enrichment -- increased ph...