A gigantic palm that flowers itself to death and exists as part of an entirely unique genus has been discovered in Madagascar. The mystery palm has a huge trunk which towers over 18m high and fan…

“We are blessed to have each other to depend on. If you have to go through something bad like cancer, you’re glad to have a friend to go through it with,” said one of two brothers from Savannah,…

On January 14, 2008, more than three decades after the third Mariner 10 flyby, the last spacecraft visit of Mercury, MESSENGER passed 200 kilometers above Mercury's surface. Extensive scientific…

A newly discovered parasite so dramatically transforms its host, an ant, that the ant comes to resemble a juicy red berry, ripe for picking, according to a report accepted for publication in The…

The Sigourney Community School District in southeast Iowa, has been using one of the country's first hybrid school buses since Jan. 3. And they're pretty excited about it. Dan Taghon, director of…

The p53 regulatory network, the 'guardian of the genome' has, during the course of human evolution, created additional safeguards in human genes to further guard against DNA damage that could a…

Ethology is the study of animal behavior, with a focus on behavioral patterns in natural environments. A new paper shows that researchers are now taking a machine-learning approach. The work by Csaba…

All multicellular animals have an innate immune system. When bacteria, parasites or fungi invade the organism, small protein molecules are released that eliminate the attackers. Scientists of the…

Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City released an analysis showing that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth’s second warmest year in a century. 2006 was…

A book supplementing intelligent design theory is now published through AuthorHouse under the pen name Allan Josephson: "Mystery, History and Future: A Parable of Objective Truth". The book offers…

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a workshop at the NIH on the National Cancer Institute Clinical Development of Small Molecules: This one-day workshop will provide specialized training and…

Loneliness is commonly regarded as a social phenomenon in which individual personality differences contribute to its severity. Some people enjoy solitude, for example, because they never feel lonely…

Bisexuality in women appears to be a distinctive sexual orientation and not a transitional stage that some women adopt "on their way" to lesbianism or as a temporary phase in otherwise heterosexual…

In an PLoS ONE article, Joan B. Company and colleagues at the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC) in Spain describe a mechanism of interaction across ecosystems showing how a climate-driven…

It's possible to generate energy by growing plant material and burning it. If managed well, most of the carbon released by burning the material will be captured by the growing plants, and so have a…

A fundamental difference in the way males and females respond to chronic liver disease at the genetic level helps explain why men are more prone to liver cancer, according to MIT researchers. “This…

Members of the National Science Board today delivered to the President and the Congress Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 (SEI'08), the Board's biennial report on the state of science and…

By the time Congress mandated ethanol subsidies and usage in 2005, it was difficult to find anyone in the environmental community who thought it was a good idea - even Al Gore, who championed it for…

In a ceremony at the National Federation of the Blind, NASA unveiled a new book that brings majestic images taken by its Great Observatories to the fingertips of the blind. The book will be…

Probiotics, foods containing live 'friendly' bacteria that some evidence suggests helps in digestion, have a tangible effect on the metabolism, according to the results of a new study in the journal…