Like crowds of people, microscopic particles can act together under the right conditions. By exposing crowd behavior at the atomic scale, scientists discover new states and properties of matter. Now,…

I am baffled as to why some people are so offended by the term 'junk DNA.' The colleagues I work with don't find the subject that mysterious or controversial. Some scientists such as Francis…

A role for prion proteins, the much debated agents of mad cow disease and vCJD, has been identified. It appears that the normal prions produced by the body help to prevent the plaques that build up…

A virus that has been specifically designed by scientists to be safe to normal tissue but deadly to cancer is showing early promise in a preliminary study, researchers said today at the ESMO…

15 Great, Free Security Programs

In some regions of Central Europe, salad dressing is made with pumpkin seed oil, which has a strong characteristic nutty flavor and striking color properties - in the bottle it appears red, but it…

The Ugandan government wants to change the law to allow Mabira Forest Reserve, the 30,000 hectare rainforest in Uganda which has been protected since 1932, to be carved up and a quarter of it used…

A world leader in medical implants calls for a rethink in our approach to building medical implants. Currently so-called biomaterials are chosen because they are reasonably successful at hiding from…

Salk Institute neurobiologists are beginning to tease apart the complex brain networks that enable humans and other higher mammals to fix our gaze on one object while independently directing…

Mention "outsourcing" and people tend to think of fields like manufacturing or telemarketing; theoretical physics isn't even on the list. Yet the scientists who develop theoretical predictions for…

Independent research, involving over 3 million Italians, conducted by Henley Management College and the University of Milan has concluded that the prescription costs for men over the age of 65 is…

Like the surface motif of a bubble bath, the spatial distribution of a magnetic field penetrating a superconductor can exhibit an intricate, foam-like structure. Ruslan Prozorov at the U.S.…

Video game for teen patients with cancer a virtual success

Anybody who’s tried to concentrate on work while suffering a headache knows that pain compellingly commands attention—which is how evolution helped ensure survival in a painful world. Now,…

We all share our genetic make up with relatives, but should we also share ownership of the results of DNA analysis or should this knowledge be considered private? Dr Anneke Lucassen, a clinical…

Should a ban on smoking exempt people who do it for 'cultural' reasons? What if the science regarding the detrimental effects of certain types of smoking is inconclusive? This is an issue lawmakers…

At the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Chicago, Dr. Jorge Zavala, Sr. of the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois, and colleagues showed that…

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn's moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in…

Top 10 Accidental Discoveries

Andrew Gelman astutely noted that the three researchers (Michel Cabanac, Anthony Sclafani, and Israel Ramirez) whose work I used the most to come up with the Shangri-La Diet were not at Harvard or…