A Swedish researcher says astrococytes, the most abundant cell type in the brain, can lead to new treatment for stroke victims. Stroke is the result of an infarction, or bleeding, within the brain,…

      The steady dirge of diabetes swells all about us, dark and onerous: the condition is now estimated to affect 7 percent of the population, with some putting the figure closer…

300 years after its discovery, the crystal structure of mercury fulminate has been determined. Though well known by alchemists for its explosive capability and later used as a detonator for dynamite,…

Two days ago, the KQED radio program Forum with Michael Krasny discussed the attacks on Northwestern psychology professor Michael Bailey and his book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Here is their…

A situation in which wages increase 2.3% and prices increase 3.1% is equivalent to a situation in which wages fall by 0.8% at constant prices. Though the two scenarios are equivalent in real terms…

Female rhesus monkeys use special vocalizations while interacting with infants, the way human adults use motherese, or “baby talk,” to engage babies’ attention, new research at the University of…

Huntington's is an inherited degenerative neurological disease that affects up to 8 people out of every 100,000 in Western countries. Any person whose parent has Huntington's has a 50-50 chance of…

Scientists have shown in literally thousands of studies that the p53 gene deserves its reputation as “the guardian of the genome.” It calls to action an army of other genes in the setting of varied…

Research in all manner of renewable energy technologies abounds. There’s tidal energy, underwater turbines, biological fuel cells, cow poop power. You name it someone’s probably having a go at it.…

One of the strangest and most endangered birds in the world, the kakapo, is being brought back from the brink of extinction with the help of scientists from the University of Glasgow. The largest of…

A new interpretation of data from NASA’s Viking landers indicates that 0.1% of the Martian soil tested could have a biological origin. Dr Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany,…

Observations of solar flares by spacecraft at Mars, Venus and the Earth show that eruptions on the far side of the Sun may affect our “space weather” back on Earth. In December 2006, a series of…

Opponents of gay marriage in the United States state that nuclear families have always been the standard household form. Turns out this may not be true. While gay marriage itself may not have…

Katherine Franz, an assistant chemistry professor at Duke University, says the key to battling neurological diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases may lie in binding up iron and then…

The research group of Prof. Dr. Magdalena Götz at the Institute of Stem Cell Research of the GSF – National Research Centre for Environment and Health, and the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich,…

The “world’s fattest mice” can overeat without developing insulin resistance or diabetes thanks to a glut of adiponectin, a hormone that controls sensitivity to insulin, and a lack of leptin, a…

Analysis of the chemical make up of two asteroids in the outer asteroid belt has thrown the classification system for these small bodies, which orbit between Mars and Jupiter, into disorder. Dr Rene…

A nanoparticle drug delivery system designed for brain tumor therapy has shown promising tumor cell selectivity in a novel cell culture model devised by University of Nottingham scientists. Therapy…

Images taken by Cassini’s Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) show that Saturn’s ring current is a warped disc that balloons out of the equatorial plane on the planet’s dayside and remains a…

Cutting calories helps rodents live longer by boosting cells’ ability to recycle damaged parts so they can maintain efficient energy production, says a University of Florida scientist. “Caloric…