Two studies shed additional light on a murky question: How did the cosmic fog that enveloped the universe in its early days dissipate?
Government scientists in Canada are facing growing restrictions on their ability to speak directly to the public and the press—and could benefit from new policies being instituted south of the border in the United States, according to panelists discussing the issue at the 2012 AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada. In one example, Margaret Munro, a…
Fossil hunters investigating the floor of a 385 million-year-old forest in an excavated upstate New York quarry found evidence of a complex ecosystem teeming with plant life. The journal Nature reported that excavation of the quarry in 2010 allowed researchers to study an intact portion of the forest floor complete with root systems. William Stein,…
New research has reignited the debate about whether humans truly have free will. But what difference would it make if we didn’t?
Within a sliver of a second after it was born, our universe expanded staggeringly in size, by a factor of at least 10^26. That’s what most cosmologists maintain, although it remains a mystery as to what might have begun and ended this wild expansion. Now scientists are increasingly wondering if the most powerful particle collider…
Childhood abuse and maltreatment can shrink important parts of the brain, a new study of adults suggests. Reduced brain volume in parts of the hippocampus could help to explain why childhood problems often lead to later psychiatric disorders, such as depression, drug addiction and other mental health problems, the researchers say. This link could help…
The robotic equivalent of a Swiss army knife
Reconfigurable robot a step toward something that can become almost anything.