Science & Technology

Researchers describe a key player in the defense mechanism that safeguards against excessive insulin in the body, which can be as harmful as too little.

Recently identified chili pepper fossils from Boulder and Denver museums challenge millions of years of global tomato evolutionary history. Now, that’s some spicy science!

Scientists have discovered the oldest evidence of plant self-defense in wood in a 360-million-year-old fossil from south-eastern Ireland. Plants can protect their wood from infection and water loss by forming special structures called ‘tyloses’. These …

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that destroys the protective myelin covering around nerves. Every five minutes, someone is diagnosed with the disease around the world, adding to about 2.8 million individuals that currently have to live…

Our modern rechargeable batteries, such as lithium-ion batteries, are anything but sustainable. One alternative is organic batteries with redox-organic electrode materials (OEMs), which can be synthesized from natural ‘green’ materials. A team has now …

Despite the increasing use of genomic sequencing in clinical practice, interpreting rare genetic mutations, even among well-studied disease genes, remains difficult. Current predictive models are useful for interpreting those mutations, but they are pr…

The biological age of humans and mice undergoes a rapid increase in response to diverse forms of stress, which is reversed following recovery from stress, according to a new study. These changes occur over relatively short time periods of days or month…

When spurring action against climate change, NGOs and governmental agencies frequently operate on the assumption that people are unmotivated to act because they view climate change as a problem that affects distant regions far in the future. While this…

A majority of parents of children diagnosed with Lyme disease reported that their kids recovered within six months of completing antibiotic treatment, according to a new study. The findings, based on Lyme disease treatment outcome data from 102 childre…

An LMU team has studied the biodiversity of larvae from the insect order neuroptera over the past 100 million years.

Storing donor lungs for transplant at 10 degrees Celsius markedly increases the length of time the organ can live outside the body according to new research.

A new Griffith University study has found that humpback whales will use sandy, shallow bay areas to ‘roll’ around in sandy substrates to remove dead skin cells on their return journeys south to cooler waters. Using data and footage collected from the t…

The genomes of two hornet species, the European hornet and the Asian hornet (or yellow-legged hornet) have been sequenced.

The alga Melosira arctica, which grows under Arctic sea ice, contains ten times as many microplastic particles as the surrounding seawater. This concentration at the base of the food web poses a threat to creatures that feed on the algae at the sea sur…

Faults in the Ridgecrest, California area were very sensitive to solid earth tidal stresses in the year and a half before the July 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence.