Science News

We can disrupt cancer's communication network using the methods of cyberwar, says Eshel Ben-Jacob (full text available to subscribers)     

The light from an exploding star in the Messier 82 (M82) galaxy was first photographed from Earth on January 22nd, 2013. The galaxy is ~12 million light years away so the explosion occurred about 12 million years ago.

For decades, doctors have been treating leukemia patients by transplanting stem cells from people with healthy bone marrow. But even though transplants can be a fairly effective treatment, there aren't enough tissue dono...

Taking fever-reducing pills when sick is one way to get a little relief, but it may have unintended consequences for others. According to researchers in Canada, popping acetaminophen, ibuprofen or other pain relievers ca...

On this week's podcast, our contributor, Elizabeth Case, reports from a conference for undergraduate women in physics from this past week.Elizabeth also participated in the conference herself as an undergraduate physics ...

(Spoiler alert: Yes it does . . . probably . . . um, maybe . . .I mean, it has to.) An interwebs firestorm has been raging recently about a Numberphile video that makes the astounding claim that if you add up all the pos...

Ergo App Descartes Biometrics, Inc. on Google Play How unique are your ears? Maybe only Mom ever noticed them before, but, according to Michael Boczek, the particular way your ear touches your phone when you use it is un...

The nearest exploding star detected since 1987 could offer insights into dark energy, ghostly neutrinos, and even how the universe's story will play out     

A dolphin species has been discovered that lived 19 million to 22 million years ago. Researchers from New Zealand's University of Otago uncovered fossils of a skull, jaw, and a few other parts of an ancient dolphin in ma...

Two years ago, researchers from Iowa State University (USA) published a study which concluded that spider silk conducts heat as well as metals. Now, a team from the University of the Basque Country (Spain) has repeated t...

Research teams at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and at the University of Limerick, Ireland, have discovered a novel solid state reaction which lets kesterite grains grow within a few seconds and at relatively low temperat...

A team of researchers exploring the intergranular stress corrosion cracking of a type of metallic tubing used within nuclear power plants has developed a technique to both map and predict its propagation.

Though physically distant from Antarctica, water masses in the north and tropical regions of the Atlantic Ocean appear to have a significant influence on the effects of climate change on the icy continent.

Scientists have long believed life on Earth emerged from the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago when our aquatic ancestors evolved to live on dry land. But how did fish develop limbs in the first place? It's a ques...

A newly unveiled atomic clock is the most precise timekeeping device yet, and perfect for anyone who wants to make sure their train arrives on schedule down to the 1/430 trillionth of a second.

Evidence from recent years suggests that regular exposure to mildly low temperatures may help people lose weight by increasing the amount of energy their body has to expend to keep their core temperature up, researchers ...

Not in Iowa? Then Tough Luck Texting 911 Flickr/Sleepyneko Protesters and others in the area of the protest in Kiev on the morning of January 21, local time, all received the same text message: "Dear subscriber, you are ...

Images of a snow-free Mount Shasta seen from space reveal just how bad the California drought has gotten.

The last glaciers in the United Kingdom melted centuries ago, not 11,500 years has had been believed, new research finds. Scotland's Cairngorm Mountains hosted glaciers in the Little Ice Age.

A robotic ankle with artificial muscles that use compressed air could help people with cerebral palsy or ankle injuries to walk     

NASA's call for scientific instrument proposals to be including in the Mars 2020 rover has led to a bounty of proposals. The 58 submissions is double the amount of proposals the space agency usually receives in competiti...

Take a dip in the Lagoon Nebula, a stellar nursery where bright new stars are being formed