For The Better

If you watched the most recent Super Bowl, you know the importance of a referee’s call on the outcome of a game. Slow-motion replays and close-watching eyes help, but a new sensor technology could someday serve as an even more reliable tool for officia…

A vibrating capsule designed to stir the colon to action appears to double the ability for adults struggling with debilitating chronic constipation to defecate more normally and without drugs, researchers report.

Carrots come in a rainbow of bright colors — red, orange, yellow and purplish black — because of compounds called carotenoids. They help support eye health by reacting with potentially harmful UV light. Interestingly, the molecular structures of caro…

A new analysis shows how convalescent plasma can be used to prevent hospitalizations and ultimately save lives, both for COVID-19 and for the next viral pandemic that inevitably arrives.

Climate change is aggravating the impact of droughts — one of the factors that only affect plant physiology — on all plant ecosystems worldwide. Although new tools have been developed to detect and assess drought stress in plants — transcriptomic or…

In a bid to understand why mosquitoes may be more attracted to one human than another, researchers say they have mapped specialized receptors on the insects’ nerve cells that are able to fine-tune their ability to detect particularly ‘welcoming’ odors …

Scientists have published the first record of a noble false widow spider feeding on a pygmy shrew, a species of tiny mammal protected in Ireland. The pygmy shrew — a protected mammal — was captured on spider’s web on a bedroom window, then paralyzed …

An effective, stable solid-state electrochemical transistor has been developed, heralding a new era in thermal management technology.

A new study explores ‘balancing selection’ by analyzing thousands of modern human genomes alongside ancient hominin groups, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. The research has ‘implications for understanding human diversity, the origin of disea…

Researchers have generated the first induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from bats, gaining valuable insights into the close relationship between bats and viruses.

Scientists fabricate sensitive nanostructured silver surfaces to detect arsenic, even at very low concentrations. The sensors make use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy: As a molecule containing arsenic adheres to the surface, it’s hit with a lase…