A team of physicists led by Stephen Jardin of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has discovered a mechanism that prevents the electrical current flowing…

Want to hyphenate your last name to include your wife's? Is "Three Men and a Baby" your favorite movie? If you are a man, these and other distinguishing characteristics probably mean you have lower…

Childhood cancer survivors are at heightened risk of a wide range of autoimmune diseases, reveals research published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. Diabetes and Addison's disease--a…

Intensive farming practices such as larger herd size, maize growth, fewer hedgerows and the use of silage have been linked to higher risk of bovine TB, new research has concluded. A study by the…

In 2006, a tiny percentage of astronomers took it upon themselves to change the definition of "planet" and so Pluto was out. Chaos ruled, the 237 astronomers who made the ruling dug in their heels,…

Think of how often sit with your phone, tablet, or computer, quietly shopping or reading the latest headlines. Browsing the internet certainly feels like a solitary activity, but as a new paper…

A new cholesterol-lowering vaccine leads to reductions in 'bad' LDL cholesterol in mice and macaques, according to research published in Vaccine. The authors of the study say the vaccine has the…

While most people associate the mathematical constant π (pi) with arcs and circles, mathematicians are accustomed to seeing it in a variety of fields. Two University of Rochester scientists have…

Though 97 percent of climate experts believe in climate change, the public remains less convinced, including teens, who are most likely to believe what they are told and so are heavily marketed…

Why would anyone agree to a higher tax? The most common technique is to convince enough citizens that someone else will pay for it. Vermont is happy with higher taxes when voters know they will get…

An international research team has a hypothesis regarding the mystery of why the Mediterranean Sea dried up around 5.6 million years ago. The event, known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC), saw…

Right now, in any American hospital, about half of the patients have a prescription for an acid-reducing drug called proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) to reduce heartburn or prevent bleeding in their…

Researchers have identified factors that spark the formation of pluripotent cells. Their findings, published in Developmental Cell, shed light on human embryonic development and help research into…

By Kate Gammon, Inside Science --Without risky ideas in science, the world wouldn't have new cancer treatments, an understanding of dark matter – or even the World Wide Web. But as scientific…

Genetic sequencing of a single tumor reveals far greater genetic diversity among cancer cells than anticipated. Researchers from the University of Chicago and the Beijing Institute of Genomics…

“Here’s my bet: the kids are going to win and when they do, it’s going to matter,” prophesized environmentalist Bill McKibben about fossil fuel divestment in 2013. If so, they are going to be led by…

Cultural pressures to avoid anything controversial and the need to show a positive result to get the next grant have led scientists to avoid risk-taking and choose inefficient research strategies,…

The heart of darkness is a metaphor but it is quite literal when it comes to space. Not only is matter as we know it just a fraction of what is out there, it is only a few percent. That means the…

Researchers have learned more about what happened to the climate on Mars since it was a warm and watery planet billions of years ago. The researchers announced on Thursday that NASA's MAVEN (Mars…

The opioid addiction for more than half of female methadone clinic patients began with painkillers prescribed by doctors, according to a paper in Biology of Sex Differences. More than half (52%) of…