Science News

The concept of "digital metamaterials" - a simple way of designing metamaterials with bizarre optical properties that could hasten the development of devices such as invisibility cloaks and superlenses - is reported in a...

A new project aims to send a special message from Earth -- a type of global "selfie" -- into space, by uploading it to a spacecraft traveling through the cosmos on its way to Pluto.

Australian officials asked the International Whaling Commission Monday to maintain a temporary ban on whaling imposed on Japan in the first global summit on whaling since March.

New research illustrates how fear arises in the brain when individuals are exposed to threatening images. This novel study is the first to separate emotion from threat by controlling for the dimension of arousal.

Approximately one out of every 40 individuals in the United States is a carrier of the gene responsible for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), According to recent studies. This illness is a neurodegenerative disease that cau...

Researchers have provided the first blueprint of a bacterium's "molecular machinery," showing how bacterial immune systems fight off the viruses that infect them. By tracking down how bacterial defense systems work, the ...

A single group of microorganisms may be responsible for much of the world's vitamin B12 production in the oceans, with implications for the global carbon cycle and climate change, researchers have discovered. Thaumarchae...

A new, large cohort analysis from the prospective Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial, indicates that men who had moderate baldness affecting both the front and the crown of their head at...

The quest to create artificial "squid skin"--camouflaging metamaterials that can "see" colors and automatically blend into the background--is one step closer to reality, thanks to a breakthrough color-display technology ...

Reproductive cell division has evolved a simple, mechanical solution to avoid chromosome sorting errors. This natural safeguard prevents incorrect chromosome counts and misalignments that lead to infertility, miscarriage...

MIT's new robotic cheetah isn't as speedy as its wild counterpart, but it is stealthy and surprisingly agile.

Two new studies shed light on the most common form of head injury seen in athletes. They suggest that concussions continue to be a 'hidden injury' in sports, even in the face significant increased public awareness.

A milky alcoholic concoction was made and drunk at one of the largest cities in prehistory, Teotihuacan in Mexico. This liquor may have helped provide the people with essential nutrients during frequent shortfalls in sta...

Adding a common epilepsy drug to a morphine regimen can result in better pain control, fewer side effects and reduced morphine dosage, according to research. The result could bring significant relief to many patients wit...

A peek inside the brains of more than 750 children and teens reveals a key difference in brain architecture between those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and those without. Kids and teens with ADHD, a new s...

Heat drives classical phase transitions--think solid, liquid, and gas--but much stranger things can happen when the temperature drops. If phase transitions occur at the coldest temperatures imaginable, where quantum mech...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a technique for controlling the surface tension of liquid metals by applying very low voltages, opening the door to a new generation of reconfigurable elect...

Far from staying put, RNA - the less famous cousin of DNA - can roam far afield, carrying information to other cells in the body and even to other animals (full text available to subscribers)

Putting the human FOXP2 gene – thought to play a role in the development of language – into mice makes them quicker at learning tasks automatically

Hurricane Odile hit the Mexican resort city of Cabo San Lucas Sunday night, tying the record for the strongest hurricane ever recorded on the Baja Peninsula.

Using the recent debate over the Facebook-Cornell "emotional contagion" study as a starting point, an international team of research ethics scholars begin mapping the ethics terrain of large-scale social computing resear...

Archaeologists have peered into a third doorway inside of an ancient tomb in Greek Macedonia that is believed to date back to the era of Alexander the Great.