Index

Take a bunch of fast-moving electrons, place them in orbit and then hit them with the shock waves from a solar storm. What do you get? Killer electrons. That's the shocking recipe revealed by ESA's Cluster mission.

Researchers have new insight into the relationship between Parkinson's disease and smoking. Several studies have shown that smokers have a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. A new study shows that smoking for a greater number of years may reduce the risk of the disease, but smoking a larger number of cigarettes per day may not reduce the risk.

You may have more in common with Kanzi, Panbanisha and Nyota, three language-competent bonobos living at Great Ape Trust, than you thought. And those similarities, right at your fingertip, might one day tell scientists more about the effect of culture on neurological disorders that limit human expression. A recently published pointing study supports the assertion that the success of language studies with bonobos is tied to rearing.

Discovery of an antibiotic's capacity to improve cell function in laboratory tests is providing movement disorder researchers with leads to more desirable molecules with potentially similar traits, according to scientists.

Scientists are working on a delicious new all-oat or all-barley bread.

A randomized trial shows three months after 10 massages, patients' anxiety symptoms were halved -- an improvement like that previously reported with psychotherapy, medications, or both. But the trial also found massage no more effective than simple relaxation.

Computer programs have been able to predict which of three short films a person is thinking about, just by looking at their brain activity. The research provides further insight into how our memories are recorded.

Rhesus monkey babies born to mothers who had the flu while pregnant had smaller brains and showed other brain changes similar to those observed in human patients with schizophrenia, a study has found.

Nanoparticles are atmospheric materials so small that they can't be seen with the naked eye, but they can very visibly affect both weather patterns and human health all over the world -- and not in a good way, according to a new study.

Scientists have a greater understanding of how our genes are controlled following a major research project. The findings of the study, which looked at how proteins work as teams to control genes in the cells, could also help to unravel the mechanisms of disease such as cancer.

Scientists are using the principles of an iconic quantum mechanics thought experiment -- Schrödinger's superpositioned cat -- to test for quantum properties in objects composed of as many as one billion atoms, possibly including the flu virus.

Men who engaged in domestic violence consistently overestimated how common such behavior is by two or three times, and the more they overestimated it the more they engaged in abusing their partner in the previous 90 days.

Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles per hour along a path roughly centered on the southern constellations Centaurus and Hydra. A new study tracks this collective motion -- dubbed the "dark flow" -- to twice the distance originally reported.

New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention.

Scientists have gained new insight into why a relatively short-term hearing deprivation during childhood may lead to persistent hearing deficits, long after hearing is restored to normal. The research reveals that, much like the visual cortex, development of the auditory cortex is quite vulnerable if it does not receive appropriate stimulation at just the right time.

Obese patients with colon cancer are at greater risk for death or recurrent disease compared to those who are within a normal weight range, according to a new study.

A group of computer scientists have found a way to tame multiprocessor computers, which behave in wildly unpredictable ways even as the systems become widespread in the industry.

High school and college students who understand the geological age of the Earth (4.5 billion years) are much more likely to understand and accept human evolution, according to a new study. A 2009 Gallup poll reported that 16 percent of biology teachers believe God created humans in their present form at some time during the last 10,000 years.

A 10-year effort by a scientist to develop transgenic rainbow trout with enhanced muscle growth has yielded fish with what have been described as six-pack abs and muscular shoulders that could provide a boost to the commercial aquaculture industry.

People whose "bad" cholesterol and risk of future heart disease stay too high despite cholesterol-lowering statin therapy can safely lower it by adding a drug that mimics the action of thyroid hormone.

Scientists have leaped over a major hurdle in efforts to begin commercial production of a form of carbon that could rival silicon in its potential for revolutionizing electronics devices ranging from supercomputers to cell phones. Called graphene, the material consists of a layer of graphite 50,000 times thinner than a human hair with unique electronic properties.

Hip replacement patients with metal-on-metal implants (both the socket and hip ball are metal) pass metal ions to their infants during pregnancy, according to a new study.

Some of our organs, such as the liver and the heart, are lateralized. As our bodies develop they mostly display bilateral symmetry across the vertebral column. A new molecular pathway, which plays a role in this symmetry in vertebrates, has recently been discovered.

According to new findings, owning a video-game system may hamper academic development in some children. Boys who received a video-game system immediately had significantly lower reading and writing scores after four months than boys receiving a video-game system at the end of the experiment. Further analysis revealed that the time spent playing video games may link the relationship between owning a video-game system and reading and writing scores.

Researchers have sequenced for the first time the entire genome of a family, enabling them to accurately estimate the average rate at which parents pass genetic mutations to their offspring and also identify precise locations where parental chromosomes exchange information that creates new combinations of genetic traits in their children.

Patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery experience changes in their urine composition that increase their risk of developing kidney stones, research suggests.

Social insects -- ants in particular -- are usually thought of as selfless entities willing to sacrifice everything for their comrades. However, new research suggests that ant queens are also prepared to compromise the welfare of the entire colony in order to retain the throne.

Patients already taking warfarin who develop an acute stroke appear more likely to experience a brain hemorrhage following treatment with an intravenous clot-dissolving medication, even if their blood clotting function appears normal, according to a new study.

Exerting delicate control over a pair of atoms within a mere seven-millionths-of-a-second window of opportunity, physicists created an atomic circuit that may help quantum computing become a reality.

Bad behavior in childhood is associated with long-term, chronic widespread pain in adult life, according to the findings of a study following nearly 20,000 people from birth in 1958 to the present day. The research found that children with severe behavior disturbances had approximately double the risk of chronic widespread pain by the time they reached the age of 45 than children who did not have behavior problems.

Pharmaceutical companies could substantially reduce the expense of costly treatments for cancer and other diseases produced from mammalian or bacterial cells by growing these human therapeutic proteins in algae -- rapidly growing aquatic plant cells that have recently gained attention for their ability to produce biofuels.

Although it's typically considered an adolescent curse, ADHD actually affects about five percent of adults as well. New research in a mouse model of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder suggests that the root of the psychiatric disorder might be the over-activity of a protein that regulates dopaminergic pathways. The work suggests a path toward new treatments for symptoms including inattentiveness, over-activity and impulsivity.

Researchers conducted the first field study showing how endangered loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings use their limbs to move quickly on a variety of terrains in order to reach the ocean.

A new assay allows scientists to discover whether ticks are carrying disease-causing bacteria and which animals provided their last blood meal. Assay results suggest three emerging diseases in the St. Louis area are carried by lone star ticks feeding on record-high populations of white tailed deer.

Most people are familiar with security technology that scans a person's handprint or eye for identification purposes. Now we are closer to practical technology that can test someone's voice to confirm their identity.

In one of the first such studies involving human patients with schizophrenia, researchers have provided evidence that deficits in a brain chemical may be responsible for some of the debilitating cognitive deficits -- poor attention, memory and problem-solving abilities -- that accompany the delusions and hallucinations that are the hallmarks of the disorder.

In a surprise with implications for air quality, researchers have found that chemistry involving airborne chloride, thought to be restricted to sea spray, occurs at similar rates in air above Boulder, Colo., nearly 900 miles away from any ocean.

A study shows that frequent napping is associated with an elevated prevalence of type 2 diabetes and impaired fasting glucose in an older Chinese population.

A three-year field program now underway is measuring carbon distributions and primary productivity in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean to help scientists worldwide determine the impacts of a changing climate on ocean biology and biogeochemistry.

Metastases that were 2 millimeters or less in diameter ("micrometastases") in axillary lymph nodes detected on examination of a single section of the lymph nodes were associated with poorer disease-free and overall survival in breast cancer patients, according to a new study.

Visitors to national parks and forests are encouraged to use bear spray when they encounter grizzlies, but disposing of the bear spray canisters is a problem that students have addressed.

An expert calls for change in the way researchers and pharmaceutical companies collect and report adverse symptom information in clinical trials submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, and how the FDA represents this information on drug labels.

Materials scientists have designed a way to harvest small amounts of waste energy and harness them to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel.

When cells move about in the body, they follow a complex pattern similar to that which amoebae and bacteria use when searching for food, researchers have found.

The hippocampus, a part of the brain essential for memory, has long been known to "replay" recently experienced events. Previously, replay was believed to be a simple process of reviewing recent experiences in order to help consolidate them into long-term memory. However, new research shows the phenomenon of memory replay is much more complex, cognitive process that may help an animal maintain its internal representation of the world, or its cognitive map.

Repair proteins appear to efficiently scan the genome for errors by jumping like fleas between DNA molecules, sliding along the strands, and perhaps pausing at suspicious spots, say researchers who tagged the proteins with quantum dots to watch the action unfold.

In the far northern reaches of the Arctic, day versus night often doesn't mean a whole lot. During parts of the year, the sun does not set; at other times, it's just the opposite. A new study shows that Arctic reindeer have come up with a solution to living under those extreme conditions: They've abandoned use of the internal clock that drives the daily biological rhythms in other organisms.

Early detection is key to more effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of cognitive impairment, and recent research shows that a new test is more than 95 percent effective in detecting cognitive abnormalities associated with these diseases.