Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
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- Life
Drug candidate takes new aim at MERS
An experimental drug that shuts down construction of virus-making factories could become a new weapon against MERS.
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- Life
Designer T cells emerge as weapons against disease
Decades of attempts to boost the immune system’s ability to fight disease are finally starting to pay off. Reprogrammed T cells serve as new weapons against cancer and autoimmune diseases.
- Neuroscience
Legalization trend forces review of marijuana’s dangers
Marijuana legalization advocates tout pot’s medicinal benefits and low addictiveness, while critics point to its neurological dangers. Research shows that the reality is somewhere in the middle.
- Animals
Otters provide a lesson about the effects of dams
A dam created a new habitat, but that habitat’s lower quality kept otter density low.
- Cosmology
2014 Kavli Prize winners announced
Cosmic inflation, nanoscale imaging and a better understanding of memory earn million-dollar honors with the Kavli Prize.
- Life
Polio could return after near eradication
Polio was considered eliminated in the United States by 1979, but since then vaccination rates have slipped, prompting concerns about reemergence.
- Animals
Reef fish get riled when intruders glow red
A male fairy wrasse gets feisty when he can see a rival’s colorful fluorescent patches.
- Animals
Toxic toad infiltrates Madagascar
Asian common toads may have hopped a ride to Madagascar and could pose an ecological risk to the island's native species.
- Life
Human use energy in brains, muscles differently than chimps do
The way our brains and muscles use energy is strikingly distinct compared with chimpanzees' metabolism in these tissues, a finding that may explain the major differences between the two species.
- Science & Society
Stem cell scientist reportedly agrees to retract controversial paper
Japanese stem cell scientist Haruko Obokata has agreed to retract one of the Jan. 30 Nature papers on STAP cells.
