Plant cell walls are comprised of many complex polymers that require multiple different enzymes to fully break down, such as cellulase to digest cellulose and xylanase to digest xylan. For decades…

A recent observational campaign involving more than two dozen optical telescopes and NASA's space based SWIFT X-ray telescope allowed a team of astronomers to measure very accurately the rotational…

The dilemma of our immune system is comparable to the story of Icarus and Daedalus from Greek mythology. To escape their captivity, Daedalus built wings from feathers and wax for himself and his son…

Minimal access hip arthroscopy surgery has become the treatment of choice for hip pain in young adults, but a team surgeons believe the procedure is a sham, more like acupuncture than helpful. …

Scientists have pieced together an early human habitat for the first time, and life was no organic picnic 1.8 million years ago. Nature was out to kill us and the struggle our ancestors face, as all…

How did Madagascar once slot next to India? Where was Australia a billion years ago? Cloud-based virtual globes developed by a team led by University of Sydney geologists mean anyone with a…

An international team of researchers, with the participation of the University of Granada (UGR), has revealed new data on why breast cancer has a higher incidence and is more aggressive in obese…

Often patients undergo procedures without real informed consent being achieved due to technical language, jargon and time pressure, with up to half of patients finding it difficult to understand what…

Elon Musk hopes to land a hundred colonist hopefuls at a time as soon as the early 2030s. NASA also proposes its "Road Map to Mars" which could see human "boots on Mars" in the near future. It is…

I can foresee a possible clash between those that want to send humans to Mars, and those who want to protect the planet from Earth life. Humans may go there in the near future, as soon as fifteen…

The use of meldonium--the substance taken by tennis star Maria Sharapova--is widespread among elite athletes, reveals research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The findings…

Doctors have long characterized epilepsy as a brain disorder, but researchers at Case Western Reserve University have found that part of the autonomic nervous system functions differently in epilepsy…

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Shiley Eye Institute, with colleagues in China, have developed a new, regenerative medicine approach to remove congenital…

SAN DIEGO, March 13, 2016 -- Electronics manufacturers constantly hunt for ways to make faster, cheaper computer chips, often by cutting production costs or by shrinking component sizes. Now,…

SAN DIEGO, March 13, 2016 -- Hops, those little cone-shaped buds that give beer its bitter flavor, pack a surprisingly healthful punch. They are widely studied for their ability to halt bacterial…

SAN DIEGO, March 13, 2016 --Women can choose from a wide selection of birth control methods, including numerous oral contraceptives, but there's never been an analogous pill for men. That's not for…

EUGENE, Ore. -- (March 8, 2016) -- If you have trouble sleeping, the neurons in your brain may be firing like those in roundworms randomly seeking food in the absence of clues, says University of…

Crowds formed from tiny particles disperse as their environment becomes more disordered, according to scientists from UCL, Bilkent University and Université Pierre et Marie Curie. The new mechanism…

It is hard enough to sterilize the robots we send to Mars to search for life. How can we expect to do the same for humans? It's at least a major challenge. I've argued that to start with we should…

By now the entire world has heard that famed Russian tennis champion Maria Sharapova has tested positive for a banned substance. According to a March 9 Reuters article, she has been suspended, lost…