For The Better

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…