Light can be used to activate normal, non-genetically modified neurons through the use of targeted gold nanoparticles, report scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois…

Last week, prominent tech site Gigaom ceased operations with the terse note “Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time”. Started in 2006 by Om Malik, the site had…

 Chitin is a molecule that forms hard structures like fungal cell walls and the exoskeletons of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans. It forms a strong and pliable material that is…

A generation ago, environmental activists declared war on yet another field of science - astronomy. A new telescope was going to disrupt a squirrel, they alleged, and so astronomy abandoned places in…

Why did the earliest side-scrolling games go left to right? From the 1980s on, they seemed to do that. And in the western world people write left to right. That is enough for psychologist Dr. Peter…

Almost any farmer or consumer could agree on the following ideals for our agricultural system: "Farming in ways that are best for us, best for the environment, and best for providing an…

Dr. Harold Roy-Macauley, new Director General of AfricaRice, doesn't want to just improve rice science for Africa, he wants to make the continent a world leader in it. The rice sector in Africa is…

Mutations in the presenilin-1 gene are the most common cause of inherited, early-onset forms of Alzheimer's disease. In a new study, published in Neuron, scientists replaced the normal mouse…

Where you receive medical care impacts many things - including whether or not you receive inappropriate medical tests, according to a new study. Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and its…

oday marked the publication of the first ever genome-wide association study of rosacea, a common and incurable skin disorder. Led by Dr. Anne Lynn S. Chang of Stanford University's School of Medicine…

The human eye is optimized to have good color vision at day and high sensitivity at night.  But until recently it seemed as if the cells in the retina were wired the wrong way round, with light…

I’ve probably lost count of the number of ‘WATER ON MARS’ and related headlines I’ve read over the years. It’s an interesting case study of how a scientific theory gains support as more evidence is…

Where is the line between advocating science and protecting corporate profits? It's usually only clear to people trying to show the other side is involved in wrongdoing. A paper in PLOS Medicine uses…

When it comes to buying things, our brains can't see the big, black-and-white forest for all the tiny, colorful trees, according to marketing scholars at The Ohio State University, who say that…

Studying the intricate fractal patterns on the surface of cells could give researchers a new insight into the physical nature of cancer, and provide new ways of preventing the disease from developing…

New research has shown that patients having heart surgery do not benefit if doctors wait until a patient has become substantially anaemic before giving a transfusion. In the UK, about half of all…

Proteins from salt-loving, halophilic, microbes could be the key to cleaning up leaked radioactive strontium and caesium ions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan. The…

Exposure to hormone-altering chemicals called phthalates - which are found in many plastics, foods and personal care products - early in pregnancy is associated with a disruption in an essential…

Prenatal exposure to low doses of the environmental contaminants polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, change the developing brain in an area involved in metabolism, and some effects are apparent even…

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, though fortunately has a far shorter lifespan than the CO2 that is implicated in global warming. However, the prevalence of natural gas, cleaner energy which…