News
- Neuroscience
New ways to image and control nerve cells could unlock brain mysteries
Methods that target single nerve cells in mice and fruit fly brains are starting to tease apart the brain’s complexity.
- Health & Medicine
Overdose deaths tied to antianxiety drugs like Xanax continue to rise
Benzodiazepines, widely used but addictive drugs to treat anxiety and insomnia, are contributing to a growing number of overdose deaths.
- Animals
This rediscovered Bolivian frog species survived deadly chytrid fungus
Scientists recently rediscovered a frog species in Bolivia that hasn’t been seen in 10 years — and it could be used to better understand a frog-killing fungus.
- Animals
Bacterial compounds may be as good as DEET at repelling mosquitoes
A bacterium’s metabolic by-products are as effective as DEET in deterring Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
- Anthropology
An ancient child from East Asia grew teeth like a modern human
Choppers from a youngster with an unknown evolutionary background indicate that hominids evolved a humanlike life span in East Asia by 100,000 years ago.
- Paleontology
A four-legged robot hints at how ancient tetrapods walked
Using fossils, computer simulations and a life-size walking robot, researchers re-created how an early tetrapod may have made tracks.
- Health & Medicine
A new 3-D printed ‘sponge’ sops up excess chemo drugs
Researchers have created “sponges” that would absorb excess cancer drugs before they spread through the body and cause negative side effects.
- Psychology
Easing test anxiety boosts low-income students’ biology grades
Wealthier students outperform their less advantaged peers in math and science. Decreasing test anxiety may help even the playing field.
- Cosmology
A cosmic flare called the ‘Cow’ may reveal a new way that stars die
A burst of light from far away may have been an odd type of exploding star or a white dwarf being eaten by a black hole.
- Tech
Desalination pours more toxic brine into the ocean than previously thought
Desalination plants help offset the world’s growing water needs, but they also produce much more supersalty water than scientists realized.
- Science & Society
Here’s how the record-breaking government shutdown is disrupting science
The partial government shutdown is taking many U.S. scientists out of commission and putting up hurdles to their research.
- Climate
A drill built for Mars is being used to bore into Antarctic bedrock
An autonomous drill originally designed for work on Mars has its first mission in Antarctica.
