Science News

For the first time, theoretical physicists from the University of Basel have calculated the signal of specific gravitational wave sources that emerged fractions of a second after the Big Bang. The source of the signal is...

The top quark is a unique little thing.

The beetle uses its mandibles to latch on to an army ant's rear, where it blends in while moving to a new nest together with the ants

When it divides, a stem cell has a choice: produce more stem cells or turn into the specific types of cells that compose skin, muscle, brain, or other tissue. New experiments in skin show this decision can be altered if ...

It is consensus that mothers' diet has critical effects on fetal development, and the absence of nutrients is related to impairments on brain formation. In order to characterize the nutrients during human brain developme...

Arsenic-contaminated drinking water impacts millions of people worldwide. Groundwater contamination is primarily caused by microbes that convert one form of arsenic into another form that can infiltrate groundwater. Rese...

A drug first designed to prevent cancer cells from multiplying has a second effect: it switches immune cells that turn down the body's attack on tumors back into the kind that amplify it.

Think you can do better than the Symmetry staff? Send us your poems! Has the love of your life fallen for particle physics? Let the Symmetry team help you reach their heart--with haiku. On Valentine's Day, we will publis...

We all know that the human body has weaknesses. Whether the cause is genetic, environmental, personal choices, pure dumb luck, or some combination of factors, it's not uncommon for diseases to take hold and destroy a bod...

The cellular skeleton protein actin can bind cells together, and also play a number of roles in cancer's invasion into new tissues in the body.

Women have claimed for years that their bodies react differently whether they're pregnant with a boy or girl. Now evidence shows the sex of a baby is associated with pregnant women's immune responses.

Currently, more than 34 million people in the U.S. care for terminally ill love ones, but few resources are available to help them navigate the challenges they encounter. A study has found that nearly one-quarter of care...

Though marijuana edibles are becoming increasingly common, scant information exists on how to test drivers for impairment following their consumption. For the first time, research evaluates the performance of roadside sa...

New research has identified a previously unknown mechanism involved in the immune response that could provide an alternative therapy target for treating the estimated 1.5 million Americans and five million-plus people wo...

Lecithin, a natural emulsifier commonly used in processed foods, synergistically enhances the antimicrobial properties of the natural essential oil, eugenol, but only when applied in very small quantities, report scienti...

Programmed cell death is an integral part of embryonic development. Exploring the regulation of the process, researchers have shown that so-called microRNAs protect the precursors of neurons from 'precocious' elimination...

Probiotics are well known to benefit digestive health, but prebiotics are less well understood. Recent study in rats shows that prebiotic fibers may help to protect beneficial gut bacteria and restore healthy sleep patte...

Pregnancy in the UK has never been safer, say scientists. Less than 1 in 10,000 women in the UK die in pregnancy and women who get pre-eclampsia have a less than 1 in 1,000,000 chance of dying.

Short-course preoperative radiotherapy combined with delayed surgery reduces the adverse side-effects of rectal cancer surgery without compromising its efficacy, report scientists.

Novel technology has been used to monitor vulnerabilities for cardiovascular events, aid in diagnosis and treatment.

The annual number of estimated number of norovirus cases annually in the UK is approximately 800,000 greater than previously estimated, new research concludes.

The latest attempt to resurrect climate change deniers' favourite trope of a warming pause is just more smoke and mirrors, say Michael Mann and Susan Hassol