Even in stringent times, it seems like a good idea to do some science to find out what the world is made of and how it works.
The first truly Earth-like alien planet is likely to be spotted next year, an epic discovery that would cause humanity to reassess its place in the universe. While astronomers have found a number of exoplanets over the last few years that share one or two key traits with our own world — such as size…
A detailed genetic analysis has settled the question of how and when the first Americans arrived in the continent. Scientists have found that Native American populations from Canada to the southern tip of Chile arrived in at least three waves. Most are descended entirely from a single group of migrants that crossed over through Beringia,…
Some women always have men on the brain. And some women literally have men in their brains. A new study in PloS ONE found that quite a few female brains contain male DNA. This genetic material presumably passes into a mother while she is pregnant with a male fetus. Although we already knew that fetal…
The task of finding the genetic roots of common disease seems much harder, dimming the promise of personal genomics and the chances of quick medical payoffs from the human genome project, given new data about the human genome in two reports published online in the journal Science. It now appears that large numbers of very…
Scientists and engineers worldwide can submit papers for a conference dedicated to brainstorming ideas for future Mars exploration.
A mammoth effort has produced a complete computational model of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, opening the door for biological computer-aided design.