Science News

These marsupials have especially talented poop-cubing butts. And a team of physicists figured out how they work.

Wombats, the chubby and beloved, short-legged marsupials native to Australia, are central to a biological mystery in the animal kingdom: How do they produce cube-shaped poop? Patricia Yang, a postdoctoral fellow in mecha...

We’ve long used the brain as inspiration for computers, but the SpiNNaker supercomputer, switched on this month, is probably the closest we've come to recreating it in silicon. Now scientists hope to use the supercompu...

Microscopes make the invisible visible. And compared to conventional light microscopes, transmission x-ray microscopes (TXM) can see into samples with much higher resolution, revealing extraordinary details. Researchers ...

(RCSI) FutureNeuro, a €13.6 million SFI Research Centre has been launched at RCSI, Dublin today. The Centre aims to translate breakthroughs in understanding of brain structure and function to transform the patient jour...

A team of U.S. and Korean physicists has found the first evidence of a two-dimensional material that can become a magnetic topological insulator even when it is not placed in a magnetic field.

Researchers report MDMA, the main compound in ecstasy, helps people to cooperate better, but only when the other person is trustworthy.

A new study reports teen alcohol and tobacco use has significantly decline recently, with more choosing to use marijuana. Since 2006, researchers say, less than 50% of teens try cigarettes or alcohol before trying cannab...

Researchers report menopausal women who experience intimate partner violence and emotional abuse have increased risk of developing heightened symptoms of menopause.

Think back to your high-school biology class, where you learned about DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid is the building block of life. It is present in each of our cells and determines countless physical traits. But this incred...

Researchers have identified a region of the thalamus that helps us switch between appropriate behavior required for different contexts.

Soot belches out of diesel engines, rises from wood- and dung-burning cookstoves and shoots out of oil refinery stacks. According to recent research, air pollution, including soot, is linked to heart disease, some cancer...

Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have recently demonstrated a new nonmechanical chip-based beam steering technology that offers an alternative to costly, cumbersome and often unreliable and inefficient me...

According to researchers, bodily responses to pain are controlled by a neural pathway that involves heightened activity in the spinal cord and two parts of the brain-stem.

Researchers detail the use of a drug that may help block the way glioblastoma brain cancer cells respond to fluid flow. The finding could lead to stopping glioblastoma from spreading.

A new study identifies four genes mutations which are associated with an increased risk of suicide.

Viruses are now being developed to attack cancer cells. Here's how they work.

Astronomers found a star system in our galaxy that could produce a gamma-ray burst -- one of the brightest and most energetic events in the universe.

A cache of sophisticated stone tools from a cave in China date back 170,000 years - perhaps a sign that our species arrived in East Asia earlier than we thought

Researchers debate the roles of the gut and brain hormones play in regulating appetite and metabolism.

One-fifth of global electricity consumption is based on lighting; efficient and stable white-light emission with single materials is ideal for applications. Photon emission that covers the entire visible spectrum is, how...

When Konrad Rykaczewski moved to Arizona's Sonora Desert region six years ago he took a water bottle and sprayed the plants in his front yard, not to water them, but to see how they interacted with water droplets.