Take a close look at that cheap piece of scrap iron before you toss it in the trash.  Wei-xian Zhang has a good use for it. Someday soon, much of the world might also.  Zhang, a professor…

The fight against climate warming has an unexpected ally in mushrooms growing in dry spruce forests covering Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and other northern regions, a new UC Irvine study finds.…

Why are some species of plants and animals favored by natural selection?   According to a UC Riverside-led research team, the answer lies in the rate of metabolism of a species – how fast a…

Not all enzymes that are assumed to require an RNA component in order to function do actually contain RNA, according to a study  that focused on the enzyme RNase P.   Contrary to accepted…

Harvesting energy from the sun makes terrific sense until you factor in the economics of solar technology efficiency and the environmental impact of manufacturing panels and adding new power lines.…

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study indicates that not only do human hands harbor far higher numbers of bacteria species than previously believed, women have far more kinds of microbes on…

University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers have discovered a gene that helps control the secretion of acid in the stomach—information that could one day aid scientists in creating more efficient…

In August 2005, The Lancet published an editorial entitled 'The End of Homeopathy', prompted by a review comparing clinical trials of homeopathy with trials of conventional medicine. The conclusion…

If you own(ed) a digital video recorder like a Replay, you probably never felt so liberated.   While watching a television show, it jumped over the entire block of commercials.   You could…

Consuming caffeine at any time during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of fetal growth restriction (low birth weight), according to research published on bmj.com today.  Although…

An unfortunate downside to the energy debate is that, when politics get involved, science goes out the window.   The same activist groups that insisted ethanol would be the savior of the…

Fibromyalgia is frequently considered an 'invisible syndrome' since musculoskeletal imaging is negative.  Some researchers have thought that the pain reported by fibromyalgia patients was the…

It seems like common sense, right?    We don't allow cigarettes on TV because the risk to impressionable younger people is greater than it is with adults.    Adolescents who have…

Researchers in Spain writing in the Journal of Proteome Research report deep new insights into how evolution changes the biochemistry of living things, helping them to adapt to new environments.…

Researchers in China writing in Journal of the American Chemical Society are reporting development of a new DNA "tweezers" that are the first of their kind capable of grasping and releasing objects…

Change happens. People can sense change but science can measure it and might be able to predict its future. A scientific model would be a beautiful help for us to…

Optical science has taken another leap forward. Increasing amounts of technologies rely on the usage of optic fibers for transmission of phone calls, TV broadcasts, and the internet. Optical fibers…

You've had the flu three years in a row. The first year, you got it from Bob, the IT guy, who sneezed while updating your computer. The second year, you got it from Harry, who touched the tab on the…

Scientific happenings on this day in history… But first: today’s quiz.  Not all inventions are cold and scientific… some are more on the “delicious” side of the scale.  And some inventors…

By playing it safe and using a two-pronged attack, a novel designer molecule, created and tested by an international team of researchers, fights malignant melanoma.   The substance is similar to…