Science News

Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have built the smallest, fastest and longest-running tiny synthetic motor to date. The team's nanomotor is an important step toward d...

A quantum particle can search for an item in an unsorted "database" by jumping from one item to another in superposition, and it does so faster than a classical computer ever could.

Accumulation of DNA damage can cause aggressive forms of cancer and accelerated aging, so the body's DNA repair mechanisms are normally key to good health. However, in some diseases the DNA repair machinery can become ha...

Myth busted: Urine is not actually sterile, even in healthy people. New research finds a variety of bacteria living in healthy urine, with possible links to disorders not thought to be infectious in origin.

-- From CERN to Midlands engineers -- Handling big data to understand antimatter at CERN's LHCb experiment -- Data mining for dark matter -- Develop code to study the Higgs boson and win cash prizes -- Big Bang's aftergl...

-- Call for Nomination for Next Director-General of KEK -- Cosmic inflation: Have scientists indeed found the smoking gun? (Q+A) -- It's crunch time for dark matter if WIMPs don't show -- Laser-powered particle accelerat...

People can be trained to conjure up empathy more effectively by viewing visualizations of their brain scans, new research shows.

Many women with breast cancer who choose to have both breasts removed do so despite having the same risk of developing a new cancer in the healthy breast as most other women, according to a new study.

A less-well-known type of retina cell plays a more critical role in vision than previously understood. Working with mice, the scientists found that the ipRGCs -- an atypical type of photoreceptor in the retina -- help de...

Chemical clues can reveal a sun-like star's planetary feasting, making it easier to focus on stars that are more likely to host habitable planets

Quantum physicists David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto say information is key to understanding the universe. Their constructor theory puts it centre stage (full text available to subscribers)

This week on the podcast I'm talking with physicist Paul Halpern about Einstein's theory of distant parallelism. Never heard of it? It was on the front page of the New York Times in 1929. Einstein himself said it was mor...

Seventeen years ago, Phil Yam, then news editor (now managing editor, online), was looking for a rent-a-kid to test out the newly opening physics playground at the New York Hall of Science. --

It's time for deniers of human-caused global warming to stop using an old magazine story as ammunition against the consensus of today's climate scientists.

It is thought that babies get their first dose of microbes during birth, but these bugs may arrive in the placenta much earlier, from an unexpected place

Half a million people in the US should be taking Truvada to protect them from HIV, say public health bodies

The FBI Director initially said the agency may loosen restrictions against pot smoking in order to get more hackers to apply, but backtracked on that statement the next day.

Microbes found in the human placenta are unexpectedly closely related to bacteria in the mouth, and may affect pregnant women risk of preterm birth, researchers say.

If you don't know what the May Camelopardalids are, you are not alone. This month's meteor shower, which is hitting Earth for the first time, is eagerly anticipated by astronomers since the peak of the Camelopardalids co...

The British Royal Navy's newest nuclear-powered submarine was launched on May 17 in the seaport town of Barrow-in-Furness. The aquatic behemoth is nearly 320 feet long and weighs more than 8,000 tons.

Physicists cast doubt on a landmark experiment’s claim to have observed gravity waves from the big bang --

Sending a sacred Jewish scroll to the moon could be just the beginning of an apocalypse-proof off-world backup of all culture and life on Earth