Astrocytes, the cells that make the background of the brain and support neurons, might be behind mental disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, according to new research by a Portuguese team…

Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is intriguing because of demand for fast, low-cost, nonvolatile, low-consumption, secure memory devices. MRAM relies on manipulating the magnetization of…

In June of 2013, an exceptional binary containing a rapidly spinning neutron star underwent a dramatic change in behavior never before observed - the pulsar radio beacon vanished and the system…

There is a lot of concern about food waste and it may be due to leftovers that never get used but it probably isn't the bulk of Americans - 92 percent of people eat everything. Obviously that can be…

A new paper finds that asthmatics who believe that an odor is potentially have increased airway inflammation for at least 24 hours following exposure, which highlights the role that expectations and…

In Jeju, a place emerging as a world-famous vacation spot with natural tourism resources, a recent study revealed a volcanic eruption occurred on the island. The Korea Institute of Geoscience and…

It is now generally admitted that the BICEP2 Collaboration has not yet produced an evidence for the existence of primordial B-modes in the measured polarization of the cosmic microwave background…

It sounds like it should be easy enough to know if ice is growing or retreating, but it really isn't.  Antarctic sea ice has been expanding, we are told, while Arctic sea ice is retreating, both…

A vacuum - empty space - is not as empty as one might think. In fact, empty space is a bubbling soup of various virtual particles popping in and out of existence – a phenomenon called "vacuum…

In the 1990s, it was claimed that minorities were less likely to get home mortgages 30 years after anti-discrimination laws were added to specify housing, so policies were instituted requiring…

At various times, Alan Turing was hailed as a brilliant cryptologist, leading a team of code breakers at Bletchley Park which cracked the German Enigma machine cypher during World War II, and then…

Many new particles and other new physics signals claimed in the last twenty years were later proven to be spurious effects, due to background fluctuations or unknown sources of systematic error. The…

Kepler-421b has been revealed as a transiting exoplanet with the longest known year - 704 days. For comparison, Mars orbits our Sun once every 780 days.  The farther a planet is from its star,…

We know the effects of childhood traumas like abuse and neglect on later substance abuse. But what impact does second hand trauma have? A study published in the August issue of the journal Addiction…

Easy metrics like 'it takes a gallon of gas to make a pound of beef' or 'it takes 140 liters of water to make a cup of coffee' get mainstream media because they are outrageous. They are outrageous…

Mammoths and mastodons, the famously fuzzy relatives of elephants that lived in the American midwest, weren't as nomadic as previously believed – or Cincinnati was just a great place to be at the end…

Statistical analysis of average global temperatures between 1998 and 2013 shows that the slowdown in global warming during this period is consistent with natural variations in temperature, according…

Eating probiotics regularly may modestly improve your blood pressure, according to a new review of none studies examining blood pressure and probiotic consumption in 543 adults with normal and…

Researchers have helped identify over 100 locations in the human genome associated with the risk of developing schizophrenia, in what is the largest genomic study published on any psychiatric…

As a consumer of science who is not a scientist how can you know if a theory is legitimate or simply crakcpottery.  Here are some easy to understand signs that an alternative theory is…