A race to unlock genetic clues behind living to 100 is set to begin next year, after a US team announced it will compete for the $10 million Genomics X Prize. Genetic entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg is entering the challenge to identify genes linked to a long, healthy life. His team – and any other contenders…
The Olympics is a vast experiment in human performance, sport technology and global travel. Nature meets some of the scientists behind the scenes.
A mammoth effort has produced a complete computational model of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, opening the door for biological computer-aided design.
Scientists have finally cracked a decades-old spaceflight riddle, figuring out why NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11 probes began to slow mysteriously as they sped far from the sun. The cause of the so-called “Pioneer Anomaly,” it turns out, is heat coming from the electrical current flowing through the probes’ instrument and power systems. This heat…
The word “house” generally conjures images of rectangular dwellings with front porches and chimneys. Front lawns and garages too. But fast forward a few hundred years and the traditional four walls and a roof won’t be standard housing fare, according to urban experts. Climate change, population growth and geo-political shifts are already redefining the way…
The popping of champagne corks may have subsided since scientists presented convincing evidence for the existence of the long-sought Higgs boson, but the work has just begun for theoretical particle physicists, who are revelling in the biggest glut of data they’ve had since the 1990s. Many are working evenings and weekends to interpret the results,…
Laser physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have broken the record for the highest-power laser shot with a collection of beams delivering more than 500 trillion watts of peak power. The National Ignition Facility fired 192 beams at the same time, delivering 1.85 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light to a target a mere two…
Rep. Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, may be getting ready to support legislation to grant green cards to holders of advanced degrees in the so-called STEM fields. The Texas republican, the gatekeeper on immigration bills in the House, is being urged to take action by a broad coalition of groups, including…
Big scientific discoveries, such as the God particle, can have great Earthly potential that must be shared by the world’s poor. The announcement from CERN that we now have compelling evidence for the Higgs boson — the elementary particle that, according to theory, allows other particles to obtain mass — is widely acknowledged as a…
South African scientists say they’ve discovered the most complete skeleton ever of an early human ancestor – in a rock that had lain unnoticed in a lab for years. It was only when a technician noticed a tooth protuding from the stone last month that an investigation and CT scan revealed significant parts of Australopithecus…