Almost 30 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease worldwide, a staggering health-care burden that is expected to quadruple by 2050. Yet doctors can offer no effective treatment, and scientists have not been able definitively to pin down the underlying mechanism of the disease. Recently published research offers some hope on both counts, by showing that…
Georgia Tech researchers say they’ve resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. The resurrected bacterium has been growing for more than 1,000 generations, providing scientists a chance to observe evolution in action, the university announced. “This is as close as we can get to rewinding and…
The misconduct of the financial industry no longer surprises most Americans. Only about one in five has much trust in banks, according to Gallup polls, about half the level in 2007. And it’s not just banks that are frowned upon. Trust in big business overall is declining as well – 62% of Americans believe corruption…
The equivalent of an MRI of the sun was created by scientists, who studied high-resolution images of the sun’s surface taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory showing motions on the sun’s surface caused by convection. The findings challenge our existing explanations of the formation of sunspots and magnetic field generation.
A new biofuel production process created by Michigan State University researchers produces energy more than 20 times higher than existing methods. The results, published in the current issue of Environmental Science and Technology, showcase a novel way to use microbes to produce biofuel and hydrogen, all while consuming agricultural wastes. Gemma Reguera, MSU microbiologist, has…
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of three odd galaxies that may help scientists solve a 13 billion-year cosmic mystery. The galaxies are so old and faint that astronomers nicknamed them “ghost galaxies” in a description. The objects are among the smallest and faintest galaxies near our own Milky Way galaxy, researchers said. “These…
For the first time, government scientists are saying recent extreme weather events are likely connected to man-made climate change. It’s the conclusion of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report says last year’s record drought in Texas was made “roughly 20 times more likely” because of man made climate change, specifically…
Graphene – the “wonder material” made of sheets of carbon just one atom thick – undergoes a self-repairing process to correct holes, researchers report. Graphene’s outstanding mechanical strength and electronic properties make it a promising material for a wide range of future applications. But its almost ethereal thinness makes it easily damaged when working with…
A volcanic eruption around 579 million years ago buried a ‘nursery’ of the earliest-known animals under a Pompeii-like deluge of ash, preserving them as fossils in rocks in Newfoundland, new research suggests. An international team looked for evidence of life from the mysterious Ediacaran period (635-542 million years ago) in which the first ‘animals’ –…
Prominent scientists are in a bitter struggle over the origins of kindness. But the root of this conflict may be the most ironic part of all.