Highly-paid environmental lobbyists invoke Frankenstein's monster for everything, apparently never having read the novel. But there is some biology that is a little like Shelley's monster, massive…

In the first decade of the the new millennium, there was a lot of hand-wringing about the cutting of science journalism jobs at mainstream news outlets. The groundswell of support was...okay, it was…

Laundry detergent pods became popular 2010, because they are more precise than liquids or powder. Are they more dangerous than liquids or powder? A new paper from researchers at Nationwide Children's…

Though marijuana use has gone up sharply since 2007, claims about its lack of harm compared to cigarettes or drugs are not based on evidence. Instead, studies have shown abnormalities in brain…

The need for a moral higher power may have been as necessary for adapting to a dangerous world as physical adaptations, according to a new paper. The authors suggest that societies with less access…

I'll have a clean cage with a side of fertility issues. Mouse image via www.shutterstock.com By Anne-Marie Hodge, University of Wyoming Mice possess a notable talent: they are excellent at making…

Boston, MA - Among pregnant women infected with HIV, the use of antiretroviral (ARV) medications early in pregnancy to treat their HIV or to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV does not…

Neigh problem with injections. Shutterstock By Adele Williams, University of Surrey Picture this. Your prize horse needs a vaccination. Who should turn up to deliver this but a veterinary graduate of…

The adult human body is made up of about 37 trillion cells. Microbes, mainly bacteria, outnumber body cells by 10 to 1. This huge community of microbes, called the microbiome, affects the health,…

Black holes aren’t black. Warner Bros. By Alasdair Richmond, University of Edinburgh Note: this article has spoilers. In Interstellar’s near-ish future, our climate has failed catastrophically,…

What will McDonald’s do? The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday cleared a genetically engineered potato with two innovations that help both consumers and producers: The Simplot Innate potato…

The Inamori Foundation has awarded the 2014 Kyoto Prizes to biomedical engineer Dr. Robert Langer in medicine, theoretical physicist Professor Edward Witten in math, and Fukumi Shimura in the Arts.…

The 1KITE project (1,000 Insect Transcriptome Evolution) seeks to understand the millions of living insect species that shape our terrestrial living space and both support and threaten our natural…

When a cell divides, it passes through a sequence of complex events and mitochondria, the organelles called the power plants of the cell, are the main source of energy for these processes: They…

8 percent of our genome derives from retroviruses that inserted themselves into human sex cells millions of years ago and right now the koala retrovirus (KoRV) is invading koala genomes. Koalas are…

Though the World Series is over, baseball never really ends in the modern era. There are MVP announcements, free agency and then the winter meetings. Before we know it, it will be February and…

Patients with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, have difficulty with action verbs: Why action verbs and not regular verbs or nouns?  According to some…

This is a commonly used argument, indeed often taken for granted. We can simulate physics on a computer. So, the argument goes, what is to stop us eventually simulating your whole body including your…

In the NFL, teams share revenue from national television contracts and to sell local tickets, if a team has not sold at least to a specific threshold, the game is blacked out locally. If enough…

Proof of life beyond earth is coming. Stargazing image via Shutterstock By David A. Weintraub, Vanderbilt University How will humankind react after astronomers hand over rock-solid scientific…