After they die, people are happy to donate their hearts, their eyes, even whole skeletons, without knowing anything at all about what will happen to them. What about genetic information?  Under…

A 10-year-old boy suffered seizures after over-indulging in licorice sweets and that has led to calls for manufacturers to put a warning on the labels of licorice.  After suffering a 2 minute…

Amyloid, an abnormal protein whose accumulation in the brain is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, starts accumulating inside neurons of people as young as 20, a much younger age than scientists ever…

Emulsifiers are one key group of food ingredients that is broadly used in formulation of packaged food products. Scientists have shown that it may cause disruption of the mucosal layer in our…

During the first afternoon session of the XVI Neutrino Telescopes conference (here is the conference blog, which contains a report of most of the lectures and posters as they are presented) Francis…

Synthetic cannabinoids ("synthetic marijuana"), with names like Spice, K2, Scooby Doo and hundreds of others, are often sold as a safe, "legal" alternative to marijuana but that is just marketing by…

Low birth weight is indicative of various problems and fortunately modern science has made it possible for more low-birth weight babies than ever to thrive, survival is over 94 percent for…

Quantum mechanics tells us that light can behave simultaneously as a particle or a wave, but researchers haven't been able to capture both natures of light at the same time; the closest we have come…

Antipsychotic medications for pediatric patients climbed 62 percent for children on Medicaid between 2002 and 2007, reaching 2.4 percent of those youth. Unless we really believe that poor kids…

In 2008, President Obama suggested vaccines might be causing autism. In 2009, during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, there was quickly a vaccine shortage, because the government refused to allow…

Researchers have found that by changing the selectivity of an enzyme, a small molecule could potentially be used to decrease the likelihood of alcohol-related cancers in an at-risk population.…

Thorium has its advantages over uranium nuclear power, but is it right for Australia? Credit: dymidziuk.janusz, CC BY-NC-SA Australia has developed something of an allergic reaction to any mention of…

Megaloprepus caerulatus. Credit: Andres Hernandez, STRI By Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Inside Science (Inside Science) -- In late April, rain begins to pool in the hollows of trees on Barro Colorado Island…

The XVI edition of "Neutrino Telescopes" is about to start in Venice today. In the meantime, I have started to publish in the conference blog a few excerpts of the posters that compete for the "best…

Hemochromatosis (HH) is the most common genetic disorder in the western world, and yet is barely known outside biology. In the US 1 in 9 people carry the mutation, though not necessarily the disease…

The worst kept secret in science media, what one honest liberal blogger called The White Elephant In The Room, is its overwhelming partisanship. It's easy to rationalize that. If Republicans are anti…

LAUGHTER IS CLOSELY RELATED TO FEAR, RESEARCHERS FIND HONG KONG, March 2, 2015 The surest way to make someone laugh is to attack them, researchers said this week. Humor is rooted in fear, and…

The characteristic blue glow from a nuclear reactor is present in radiation therapy, too. Investigators from Dartmouth's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, led by Brian W. Pogue, PhD, and PhD candidates…

75 percent of movies released to theaters lose money, making the film industry even less able to pick winners in the private sector than the government. Surely there has to be a better method than…

Fossil "swim tracks," a type of vertebrate trace fossil gaining recognition in the field of paleontology, is  made by various tetrapods (four-footed land-living vertebrates) as they…