For The Better

Several hundred settlements from the time between 500 and 1400 AD lie in the Bolivian Llanos de Mojos savannah and have fascinated archaeologists for years. Researchers have now visualized the dimensions of the largest known settlement of the so-called…

Our brains lose the ability to link related memories as we age. Scientists genetically restored this brain function in middle-aged mice and identified an FDA-approved drug that achieves the same thing. The study suggests a new approach for combating mi…

Researchers took an all-terrain vehicle on wild rides through tall grass, loose gravel and mud to gather data about how the ATV interacted with a challenging, off-road environment. They drove the heavily instrumented ATV aggressively at speeds up to 30…

Norwegian mountains are full of time capsules. Thousands of years of human and ecological history are preserved in remnant patches of ice. Now this treasure trove of information threatens to melt away, unless we take action.

Residents of Belmont County in eastern Ohio have long suffered from health problems they suspected were the result of air pollution from fracking facilities, but regulators dismissed and downplayed their concerns. With technical assistance from volunte…

Researchers have used silicone wristbands to track firefighters’ exposures to 134 potentially carcinogenic chemicals. Analysis of the chemicals absorbed by the wristbands over a six-day shift show that while some exposures are linked to being at the sc…

A new study shows that a longer period of exclusive breastfeeding was associated with decreased odds of current asthma.

A technique used in chemical synthesis is called hydrogen atom transfer, or HAT. It’s a potentially powerful and versatile chemical tool, but technical constraints have limited its use. Now chemists have borrowed a technique from the chemistry of energ…

There’s a new method for determining whether dinosaurs were hot- or cold-blooded, using clues in their bones that indicated how much the individual animals breathed in their last hour of life. The study shows that the bird-hipped dinosaurs like T. rex …

Researchers have identified the genetic causes of three mitochondrial diseases by figuring out what dozens of poorly understood mitochondrial proteins do. The functions of hundreds more mitochondrial proteins remain unknown, indicating that this approa…