Science News

A significant chunk of the missing oil from 2010's Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been discovered sitting on the seafloor at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

New research by physicists from Brown University puts the profound strangeness of quantum mechanics in a nutshell--or, more accurately, in a helium bubble.

The odorant receptor that makes DEET repellant to mosquitoes has been identified by a research team. DEET has been the gold standard of insect repellents for more than six decades, and more than 200 million people worldw...

HaptoMime uses reflective surfaces to create a floating virtual screen that you can actually feel

Mammoth bones more than 70,000 years old emerged from the eroded river banks of a reservoir in Idaho this month. Paleontologists and students raced to rescue part of the beast's skull and a tusk, but they suspect more li...

An aorta cuff, called the C-Pulse, has shown a lot of promise in a study involving 20 patients. The cuff is attached to the aorta, syncs to a patients pulse and assists in squeezing blood from the heart.

After being nearly wiped out a century ago, the sea otter population in Canada is booming. But not everyone is glad to welcome them back (full text available to subscribers)

Two Dallas nurses who became infected with Ebola this month may have recovered so quickly because of their youth, as well as the protective equipment they were wearing at the time of infection.

A mammoth skeleton was discovered this month on the banks of a reservoir in Idaho. Paleontologists have rescued part of its skull and a tusk, but there could be a lot more buried below the surface.

Fewer women than men are treated with dialysis for end-stage kidney disease, according to a new comprehensive analysis of sex-specific differences in treatment.

People who have been in prison run a higher risk of committing suicide; 18 times that of the general population. By far the highest risk of suicide comes in the first months after release and among individuals with a his...

A category of lipids known as sphingolipids may be an important link in the relationship between diet, inflammation and cancer, a team of scientists has found. They have provided evidence that a sphingolipid metabolite c...

Researchers have created "a tool for blood-barrier-brain disruption that uses bursts of sub-microsecond bipolar pulses to enhance the transfer of large molecules to the brain." According to the authors, the current medic...

The software on your smartphone may be able to recognize your voice, but it probably can't pick up nuances like sarcasm or outrage. Now, scientists are working to develop new computer system that can recognize opinions a...

A majority of Americans are confident that the U.S. government could stop an Ebola epidemic in America, according to a recent poll from CNN and ORC International. Seven in 10 Americans said they thought the federal gover...

A 2-year-old Guinean boy named Emile Ouamouno is believed to be this year's massive Ebola outbreak's "patient zero," or the first case that began spreading the disease, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. O...

West Africa needs more than 5,000 additional health care workers if the Ebola outbreak is to be controlled, the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, said Tuesday. Officials said they were concerned that fear of the...

Photo by author   It's that time of year again. The colors of the trees are beautiful and vivid oranges, reds, and purples. But autumn leaves are a nightmare for train operators, affecting anywhere with heavy deciduous ...

Once down to only 15 animals, giant tortoises on Espãnola, a tiny Galápagos island, now number about 1,000, making the reptile one of conservation's greatest success stories.

Known for shooting spectacular plumes of water into space, Saturn's tiny moon keeps warm thanks to a core that is slushy and soft rather than rock solid

All the latest stories on newscientist.com: giant solar flares, our 2D future, recruiting gut bacteria to fight cancer, holograms you can touch and more

The only targets set by the Australian government's plan to maintain the Great Barrier Reef are impossible to meet. It's doomed to fail say leading scientists