Women who breast feed for longer have a smaller chance of getting rheumatoid arthritis, suggests a study published online ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. The study also found…

A goal that remained elusive for 25 years has now allowed astronomers to obtain the most precise measurement of the cosmic temperature at an incredible distance; in a well-hidden galaxy whose light…

Here's a fun experiment, one you've probably done already a million times: stick your arm out in front of you. Stick up your left thumb, like you're giving the thumbs up. Close one eye - see where…

This is what I keep saying: "Scientists do know better than you do - even when they're wrong." Before you flame me, hold on - this is true not because scientists are smarter than everybody else: When…

Hello, Ms. Nufer's class, and welcome to your very own blog about science! Since you're learning about astronomy right now, I'll keep you updated on news from the astronomy field. If you have…

I have just set up a profile on SciLink. It looks interesting, "Facebook for scientists" as John Dennehy called it. However, like John, I was only able to add a subset of my papers.  Check it…

600 million years of evolution has taken two unlikely distant cousins, turkeys and scallops, down very different physical paths from their common ancestor but a motor protein, myosin 2, remains…

A University of Leicester space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Nigel…

In the Cerrado region of Brazil, four dogs trained to detect animal feces by scent are helping researchers monitor rare and threatened wildlife such as jaguar, tapir, giant anteater and maned wolf in…

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, social anxiety disorder affects approximately 15 million American adults and is the third most common mental disorder in the United States, after…

A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a planet's crust to…

There exists much ethical controversy brought about by advances in biology and medicine and the relationship to religion. In a new essay in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Laurie Zoloth…

Insects have provided the inspiration for a team of European researchers seeking to improve the functionality of robots and robotic tools. The research furthers the development of more intelligent…

As you may have read in the national press, the university where I work, Washington University in St. Louis, is honoring the anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate at the…

Everyone knows there is a lot of crazy stuff on the internet, but did you know there is a lot of great writing about genes, genetics, and human diseases? And believe it or not, sometimes these…

Most female frogs don’t call; most lack or have only rudimentary vocal cords. A typical female selects a mate from a chorus of males and then –silently – signals her beau. But the female concave…

Obesity is increasing in epidemic proportions in most countries and poses a public health problem by enhancing the risks for cardiovascular diseases and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes.…

Working at the University of Oxford and The Open University, Dr Lynne Cox and Dr Robert Saunders say they have found a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human aging. Their…

At first, fruit flies eat like horses. Hatching inside over-ripe fruit where they were laid, they feed wildly in the sugar-rich environment until nature sends them an offer they can’t refuse. To…

In a paper recently published in Cortex, Jan Lonnemann (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) and colleagues report that many children at the age of 8-9 years seem to represent numbers spatially.…