Each January, I scamper out of the basement and talk to folks during MIT's Independent Activities Period. The Alumni Association is the sponsor (no one from the physics or math department is inviting…

From the beginning of time, uranium has been part of the Earth and, thanks to its long-lived radioactivity, it has proven ideal to date geological processes and figuring out Earth’s evolution. …

Researchers have identified hyaluronon (HA) as a critical substance made by the body that protects against premature births caused by infection. Pre-term birth from infection is the leading cause of…

Wine, medicine and movies are two great examples of how the naturalistic fallacy - the old ways are better - retain a vice-like grip on aspects of culture.  The naturalistic fallacy issues of…

Beet juice is a fad in sports optimization because it is rich in nitrates, but does it work?  It has some value, though it does not enhance muscle blood flow or vascular dilation during…

Crops genetically engineered to produce proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to control insect pests have been planted on a cumulative total of more than a billion acres worldwide…

Autism Spectrum Disorder, a broad range of behavioral and cognitive issues that usually impair learning ability, has been studied for many years but there remain far more questions than answers. Some…

One of the biggest struggles in toxicology is creating the correct parameters so you are modeling the real world as closely as possible. It's an enormous task to model the environment with its…

Look lively! Stokkete/Shutterstock By Clive Brown, University of Leeds After a very drawn out and fraught construction, the Philharmonie de Paris is finally open. The 2,400 seat concert hall was…

A new review of other studies concludes that viruses carried by commercial bees can jump to wild pollinator populations with potentially devastating effects. Pollinators in some regions have suffered…

A stem cell capable of regenerating both bone and cartilage has been identified in bone marrow of mice. The discovery by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) is reported today in…

Over 10 percent of patients using aspirin therapy for primary cardiovascular disease prevention shouldn't be doing so, according to a recent paper.  They were likely either inappropriately…

Considering environmental effects such as a gravitational tidal force spread over a scale much larger than a galaxy cluster will be indispensable to explain the distribution and evolution of dark…

Researchers at the Montreal Heart Institute announced today results showing that patients with cardiovascular disease and the appropriate genetic background benefit greatly from the new medication…

Leaky blood vessels in the lung can lead to acute respiratory distress. Shutterstock By Jalees Rehman, University of Illinois at Chicago When you get an infection, your immune system responds with an…

They're suspected al-Shabaab militants – but probably not ivory traders. UN, CC BY-NC-SA By Diogo Veríssimo, Georgia State University It is often said that if something is repeated often enough, it…

Sex or no sex?  If you want to be healthier as a species over time, sexual reproduction is the way to go, according to a new study.  It's a long-debated topic among biologists - some argue…

Engineers in Austria have given us a blessing and a curse - they have created a giant laser system that sends beams in different directions, which makes them visible from many different angles. …

 On November 23rd, 2014, a new volcano eruption commenced on Fogo, one of the Cape Verde Islands, and it continues even now, making it the largest and most damaging eruption - and the biggest…

Scientists have developed a new biosensor that allows them to see, in real time, what happens when a plant’s defenxe system swings into action. When plants come under attack internal alarms signal…