There is an urgent reason to study stem cells: stem cells are at the heart of some, if not all, cancers. Mounting evidence implicates a clutch of rogue stem cells brandishing ‘epigenetic’ marks as…

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found a direct connection between a nation’s overall happiness and its citizens’ blood pressure problems. Sweden, Denmark and the UK come top of this…

The genomes of the largest collection of families with multiple cases of autism ever assembled have been scanned and the preliminary results published in Nature Genetics (February 18, 2007). They…

A Johns Hopkins-led study has found evidence that a genetic tendency toward suicide has been linked to a particular area of the genome on chromosome 2 that has been implicated in two additional…

By first probing the way primitive yeast make cholesterol, a team of scientists has discovered a long-sought protein whose human counterpart controls cholesterol production and potentially drug…

The current battle between the makers of anti-wrinkle products – widely compared with the Coke and Pepsi struggle for superiority – is receiving an injection of scientific understanding with the…

A  report of the American Psychological Association (APA) released today found evidence that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and…

Stefan Heller's dream is to someday find a cure for deafness. As a leader in stem cell-based research on the inner ear at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he's got a step-by-step plan for…

Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disease that has features similar to cystic fibrosis, says Thomas Ferkol, M.D., from Washington…

Silver-bearing ore found at the settlement founded by Christopher Columbus's second expedition was not mined in the Americas, new research reveals. Aerial view of La Isabela, the settlement…

Ancient people living in Panama were processing and eating domesticated species of plants like maize, manioc, and arrowroot at least as far back as 7,800 years ago – much earlier than previously…

Better tie that string around your finger a little tighter. It may turn out the reason some people grow increasingly forgetful as they age is less about how old they are and more about subtle…

What role can scientists play in public decisions about the development and deployment of weapons systems? As the United States continues to commit its troops and technology around the world, this…

Nothing says romance like having your bone tissue extracted to show your love. But Biojewellry in the UK is doing exactly that. The project is seeking couples who want to donate their bone cells -…

New research aimed at understanding the link between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change in boreal systems has found clear links between both Spring and Fall temperature changes and carbon…

It's the most common bacteria-related sexually transmitted disease in the United States, so researchers at The University of Texas at San Antonio's South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious…

Everyone hopes that one day stem cell-based regenerative medicine will help repair diseased tissue. Before then, it may be necessary to decipher the epigenetic signals that give stem cells their…

As evidence mounts that the body's normally protective inflammation response can drive some precancerous tissues to become fully malignant, UCSF scientists report discovering an apparent trigger to…

There is no such thing as a free lunch, some say, but they would be wrong. In fact, the entirety of the universe defies them. According to Stanford physics Professor Andrei Linde, one of the…

When cells become cancerous, they also become 100 times more likely to genetically mutate than regular cells, researchers have found. The findings may explain why cells in a tumor have so many…