All Stories
- Neuroscience
Brain uses decision-making region to tell blue from green
Language and early visual areas of the brain are not crucial for distinguishing colors, an fMRI study suggests.
- Genetics
Neanderthal Man
The hottest thing in human evolution studies right now is DNA extracted from hominid fossils. Svante Pääbo, the dean of ancient-gene research, explains in Neandertal Man how it all began when he bought a piece of calf liver at a supermarket in 1981.
- Physics
Key to free will may be stripping reality naked
If reality emerges from an unseen foundation, human free will could influence the future.
- Microbes
Power-packed bacterial spores generate electricity
With mighty bursts of rehydration, bacterial spores offer a new source of renewable energy.
- Health & Medicine
Should you hush that white noise?
Some sleep machines can pump out a dangerous amount of noise, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be used safely.
- Physics
Laser tweezers manipulate objects just 50 nanometers wide
Technique could allow scientists to move proteins, viruses and nanomaterials.
- Health & Medicine
Gaming-type setup relieves phantom limb pain
The treatment reduced one patient’s pain entirely for periods of time and helped him sleep without being awoken by pain.
- Agriculture
Where antibiotics go
Of the 51 tons of antibiotics consumed every day in the United States, about 80 percent goes into animal production.
- Animals
Algal blooms created ancient whale graveyard
Whales and other marine mammals died at sea and were buried on a tidal flat in what's now in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
- Health & Medicine
Bereavement can take toll on health, not just emotions
In the month after a partner dies, spouse more prone to heart attack, stroke.
- Psychology
Suicide rates drop in big cities
With more social connections, people may be less inclined to take their own lives.
- Anthropology
Human ancestors at West Asian site deemed two species
Researchers see two species instead of one at oldest known Homo site outside Africa.
