Science News

(Geological Society of America) Dust begets life, and Earth's atmosphere 300 million years ago was perhaps the dustiest of all time, with large consequences for carbon cycling and the climate system. In a new paper for G...

Chronic exposure to arsenic can lead to stem cell dysfunction that impairs muscle healing and regeneration. More than 140 million people worldwide and 4 million Americans chronically ingest arsenic in their drinking wate...

Copper can effectively help to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, which are linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), new research shows. Animal coronaviruses...

Right now, in any US hospital, about half of the patients have a prescription for an acid-reducing drug to reduce heartburn or prevent bleeding in their stomach and gut. But that well-intentioned drug may actually boost ...

What if a single vaccine could protect people from infection by many different viruses? That concept is a step closer to reality. Researchers have identified 'broadly neutralizing' antibodies that protect against infecti...

Eight years after having gastric bypass surgery as teenagers, patients continue to have significant weight loss and improvement in their lipid profiles.

New research findings show link a between colorectal cancer and melanoma drug treatment known as NT157. ancer is a highly complex disease in which the tumor recruits its surrounding tissue, as well as the immune system t...

Heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction -- where the heart becomes stiff and cannot relax or fill properly -- did not have increased exercise tolerance after taking isosorbide mononitrate, compared to a p...

A team of physicists led by Stephen Jardin of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has discovered a mechanism that prevents the electrical current flowing through fusion plasma from ...

In fusion reactor designs, superconductors (which suffer no resistive power loss) are used to generate the magnetic fields that confine the 100 million degree C plasma. While increasing magnetic field strength offers pot...

A middle-age woman in Africa who became infected with Ebola suffered a stroke during her bout with the virus but managed to survive both maladies, according to a new report of her case.

Theobroma cacao, the tree that produces chocolate, first diverged from its nearest relatives about 10 million years ago, new research suggests.

A congenital heart defect went undetected for nearly seven decades.

The "obesity paradox" may really just be all about cardiovascular fitness, one researcher argues.

For more than 50 years physicists have puzzled over a daunting mystery: Why do tokamak plasmas spiral apart when reaching a certain maximum density and halt fusion reactions? This "density limit" serves as a barrier that...

Magnetic reconnection, which occurs when magnetic lines of force break apart and reconnect with a violent burst of energy, gives rise to many beautiful and powerful phenomena in the natural world. These include solar fla...

This oddly adorable cat carries a genetic secret.

Swarming behavior has always fascinated physicists, biologists, and behavioral scientists alike--as well as anyone who's seen a sky-darkening flock of starlings twist into its mesmerizing shapes. It's hard not to wonder ...

To treat--and ultimately prevent--cancer-related fatigue, a cancer researcher will develop and test a novel mechanism of mitochondrial bioenergetics and radiation-induced fatigue using molecular-genetic approaches.

Heart patients who had undergone an angioplasty procedure that opened only some blocked arteries tended to have a resolution of their chest pain, making it unnecessary to add another medication to treat the symptom, acco...

New advances in nanopore technology could lead to the development of a surgically implantable, artificial kidney.

Scientists examined the influence of the extreme noise conditions encountered during flight on the five basic tastes. They found that noise condition had no influence on intensity ratings for salty, bitter, and sour tast...