A third of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction, according to the first-ever comprehensive global assessment to determine their conservation status. The study findings…

Japanese scientists have made a micro-sized sewing machine to sew long threads of DNA into shape. The work published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Lab on a Chip demonstrates a unique way…

However much popular television chefs like Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay might want to shake up our diets, culinary evolution dictates that our cultural cuisines remain little changed as generations…

The economic and psychological term known as “sunk-cost fallacy” is a bias that leads someone to make a decision based solely on a previous financial investment. For example, a baseball fan might…

A group of researchers at the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Copenhagen have developed models of neural networks that make it possible to simulate how the body protects itself…

Scientists have identified about two dozen genes that control embryonic stem cell fate. The genes may either prod or restrain stem cells from drifting into a kind of limbo, they suspect. The limbo…

Over the last few years, we've seen some bitter political arguments over the role of US Government scientists, political appointees, and the manipulation of technical reports. I'm not going to wade…

Over at the Panda's Thumb, Nick Matzke weighs in on how scientists should respond to Creationist criticisms that we know nothing about abiogenesis - the origins of the first living systems from non…

Kombucha starts with a mushroom, but this is not a real mushroom it’s actually the skin that forms over the top of fermenting tea after it’s combined with yeast and the bacteria Acetobacter. Once the…

European researchers are the first to demonstrate functional components that exploit the magnetic properties of electrons to perform logic operations. Compatible with existing microtechnology, the…

In addition to helping protect us from heart disease and cancer, a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders, says Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a UCLA…

In reading an interesting article in the New York Times (in part because it quotes my colleague Andrew MacDougall), I came upon this statement that caused a bit of a cough. “There’s no such thing…

China is the largest polluter in the world and leads in greenhouse gas emissions but is exempt from the Kyoto Protocol. Many Western countries argue that all polluters should face restrictions if…

A research team has for the first time discovered evidence of water that came from deep within the Moon, a revelation that strongly suggests water has been a part of the Moon since its early…

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in developing human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) from a single cell, or blastomere, of a 4-cell stage embryo, the 24th annual conference of the European…

If we told you that men in the morning had a better response to vaccinations for hepatitis A and influenza, you might think there was some biology bias at work, but that's what a study led by Anna…

Most people who find a seashell during their summer holiday on the coast will probably not be aware that they have found a unique record of the climate. For paleontologists, those hard calcium shells…

Hidden away in museums for more that 100 years, some recently rediscovered flatfish fossils have filled a puzzling gap in the story of evolution and answered a question that initially stumped even…

After taking a fresh look at an old fossil, John Flynn, Frick Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues determined that the brains of the ancestors of modern…

While it's true that the attractiveness of orthodontic braces is related to less metal, according to a recent survey, the least attractive ones remain the most effective. It's that old form versus…