Science News
Here's a list of all the news articles that have appeared on Science a GoGo this year.
2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006
2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Features
21 June 2015
New photosynthesis-mimicking technology could enable round-the-clock solar power without batteries
Developed by chemists at UCLA, a new photosynthesis-like technology is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks without the use of batteries - an advance that could change the way we think about photovoltaic solar cells and energy storage...
11 June 2015
Latest images of Ceres show detail of bright spot
New images of the dwarf planet Ceres, taken from 2,700 miles above by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, show the surface of this mysterious world in sharper detail than ever before...
9 June 2015
Water droplet computer can algorithmically manipulate physical matter
Researchers at Stanford have built a synchronous computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets. The droplet processor is significantly slower than an electronic computer, but the research team says that speed is not their aim; rather, they want to develop a completely new class of computers that can precisely control and manipulate physical matter...
3 June 2015
Missing link found between brain and immune system
In a discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist...
2 June 2015
Researchers find link between cannabis use and fewer parasites
The more that hunter-gatherers in the Congo smoke cannabis, the less they are infected by parasitic intestinal worms, according to U.S. researchers who say that the tribe may unconsciously be, in effect, smoking medical marijuana...
28 May 2015
New paper shows how spacetime is built from quantum entanglement
A new paper has made a significant step toward unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics by explaining how spacetime emerges from quantum entanglement...
25 May 2015
Blind human echolocators can recognize the shape, size, and material properties of objects, according to new study
New Canadian research suggests that as well as being able to locate objects, some blind people can also discern the shape and texture of those objects. Intriguingly, these highly developed echolocation skills appear to use the regions of the brain normally associated with visual perception...
22 May 2015
Sudden increase in Antarctic ice loss
An international group of scientists has observed a sudden increase in ice loss on the Southern Antarctic Peninsula, what was previously thought to be a stable region of Antarctica...
19 May 2015
Video game link to Alzheimer's?
Video gamers spend a collective three billion hours per week in front of their screens. And while the average young person will have spent 10,000 hours gaming by the time they are 21, the effects of video gaming on the brain are only beginning to be understood...
17 May 2015
Vaping flavorings found to alter lung function at cellular level
Certain flavorings used in electronic cigarette liquids may alter important cellular functions in lung tissue, according to new research presented at this year's American Thoracic Society International Conference...
15 May 2015
Lab study suggests mad cow disease can be transmitted by plants
A study appearing in the latest issue of Cell Reports suggests that grass plants can bind, uptake, and transport infectious prions. This means that plants may play an important role in environmental prion contamination and the horizontal transmission of the disease...
12 May 2015
New metal composite floats on water
A new metal matrix composite that combines light weight with strength and heat resistance could be used in marine vessels within three years...
11 May 2015
Memristor artificial synapse circuit demonstrated
In what its developers say is a significant step toward brain-like computing; a memristor-based circuit of about 100 artificial synapses has performed a typical human task: image classification...
6 May 2015
Stars can create DNA precursors, suggests new experiment
Scientists at Berkeley Lab have shown how DNA's molecular precursors - carbon ring structures with embedded nitrogen atoms - could be created in the region surrounding a star...
5 May 2015
Centimeter-accurate GPS system could radically transform mobile devices
Centimeter-accurate positioning systems are already used in surveying and mapping, but the antennas these systems employ are too large and costly for use in mobile devices. Now, however, scientists have devised a powerful and sensitive software-defined GPS receiver that can extract centimeter accuracies from the inexpensive antennas found in mobile devices...
4 May 2015
Premature birth alters key brain connections
New research from King's College London sheds light on why premature birth is linked to a greater risk of neurodevelopmental problems, including autistic spectrum disorders and attention deficit disorders...
1 May 2015
Mars astronauts will suffer significant brain damage
Scientists have been investigating what might happen to an astronaut's brain during the long journey to Mars and found that constant exposure to highly energetic charged particles will cause significant damage to the astronaut's central nervous system and brain...
27 April 2015
High-pitched sounds found to cause seizures in cats
Veterinary specialists in the UK have authored an intriguing paper regarding feline seizures, which in some cases appear to occur in response to certain high-pitched sounds...
22 April 2015
Link between serotonin and depression is a myth, argues leading psychiatrist
The belief that depression is due to low levels of serotonin in the brain - and that effective pharmaceutical treatments raise these levels - is nothing but a myth, according to David Healy, a Professor of Psychiatry in the UK...
17 April 2015
Major advance in artificial photosynthesis uses sunshine to create fossil fuel analogs
Berkeley Lab scientists say their nanowire-bacterial system has the potential to fundamentally change the oil industry by producing chemicals and fuels in a totally renewable way...
15 April 2015
Prototype video camera requires no power
Columbia University researchers have developed the first video camera to be fully self-powered - its pixels not only measuring the incident light, but also converting it into electric power...
14 April 2015
Search of 100,000 galaxies for advanced civilizations yields no obvious candidates
Using data from NASA's WISE orbiting observatory, a team of scientists has found no evidence of the mid-infrared energy emissions we would expect to observe from other advanced civilizations...
13 April 2015
Mars may have liquid water
We've known for a long time that there is water in the form of ice on Mars. But now, new data from NASA's rover Curiosity indicates that it's possible that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars...
9 April 2015
Passive smoking and litter could explain high levels of nicotine found in spices, herbal teas, and medicinal plants
Despite the fact that nicotine insecticides were banned in 2009, European researchers say that high concentrations of nicotine are still detected in many plants...
7 April 2015
Primordial DNA could have appeared spontaneously, suggests new study
The self-organization properties of DNA-like molecular fragments four billion years ago may have guided their own growth into repeating chemical chains long enough to act as a basis for primitive life, say an international team of scientists...
2 April 2015
Scientists create artificial link between unrelated memories
Working with mice, researchers at the University of Toyama were able to generate artificial links between unrelated pieces of information stored in memory, resulting in long-lasting changes in behavior. The work may point the way to the development of new treatments for disorders such as PTSD, where the main symptoms arise from unnecessary associations between unrelated memories...
1 April 2015
Spring-assisted exoskeleton beats evolution
It's taken millions of years for evolution to perfect how we walk, but research published in the journal Nature shows that humans can get better efficiency - around 7 percent - using an unpowered exoskeleton to modify the structure of their ankles...
30 March 2015
Chinese tree planting reverses global forest loss
Although massive vegetation loss is still occurring in Asia and South America, an analysis of 20 years of satellite data has revealed that the regrowth of forests in China, Australia, and Africa mean that the total amount of vegetation globally has increased by almost 4 billion tonnes of carbon since 2003...
26 March 2015
High-fat intake could trigger psychiatric disorders
High-fat diets have long been known to increase the risk for heart disease and stroke, but there is new evidence to link diets high in fat with a range of psychiatric disorders...
26 March 2015
Surprisingly, higher education doesn't seem to improve levels of happiness
In an intriguing new study, UK researchers say that while low educational attainment is associated with mental illness, happiness, or mental wellbeing, was equally likely across all levels of educational attainment...
23 March 2015
Poop mining for precious metals may be viable, say sewage scientists
Poop could be a goldmine - literally. Surprisingly, human biosolids contain gold, silver, and other metals, as well as rare elements such as palladium and vanadium that are used in electronics and alloys. Now, researchers are looking at identifying the metals that are getting flushed and how they can be recovered...
22 March 2015
Opossum-based antidote to snake venom could save thousands of lives
A peptide found in opossums that can be manufactured easily could provide a novel and inexpensive antidote for venomous snake and scorpion bites. The researchers behind the discovery believe it could save thousands of lives worldwide, without the side effects of current antivenom treatments...
20 March 2015
How evolution shaped our idea of the perfect butt
New research from The University of Texas sheds light on today's standards of beauty, attributing modern men's preferences for women with a curvy backside to prehistoric influences. Specifically, the woman's ability to better support, provide for, and carry out multiple pregnancies...
18 March 2015
The longer a mother breastfeeds, the higher the IQ and salary
A study that tracked more than 3,000 newborns for 30 years has concluded that the longer a mother breastfeeds, the greater the intelligence and earnings of the offspring...
11 March 2015
"Quantum jitter" mechanism behind the random mutations that drive evolution and cancer
Errors in DNA replication make evolution - and life as we know it - possible. But if there's too many of them, our genes would mutate out of control and we wouldn't survive. Now, a new study suggests that "quantum jitters" appear to tune the frequency of these spontaneous mutations to just the right level...
9 March 2015
Instead of raising self esteem, we're raising a generation of narcissists
While the dangers of narcissism are well documented, its origins are not. Now, a new study sheds light on how parents play a big part in the early development of narcissism in children...
5 March 2015
New research suggests smartphone use associated with lowered intelligence
New research that examined people's smartphone habits as well as their analytical, verbal, and numeracy skills found an association between heavy smartphone use and lowered intelligence...
2 March 2015
Image captures light as both a particle and a wave
Europeans scientists have been able to take the first ever snapshot of light behaving both as a wave and as a particle, demonstrating that imaging quantum phenomena at the nanometer scale is possible...
19 February 2015
Dark matter could be the wild card in extinction events
Our planet's long and bouncy path around the Milky Way means that dark matter could be the ultimate wild card in our ability to predict asteroid strikes, and scientists are now speculating that dark matter could also be heating the Earth's core, potentially leading to major volcanic events...
16 February 2015
DNA of bacteria that live in the body passed from mother to child
Traits such as eye color and height are passed from one generation to the next through the parents' DNA, right? Not according to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who have shown that the DNA of bacteria that live in the body can pass a trait to offspring in a way similar to the parents' own DNA...
9 February 2015
Medicos find altered gene expression in anorexia nervosa patients
A new report in the International Journal of Eating Disorders is the first to show that the longer someone suffers from anorexia nervosa, the more likely they are to show alterations in DNA methylation, affecting physiological mechanisms such as immunity and the functioning of peripheral organs...
5 February 2015
Rare spectacle of three moons transiting Jupiter's face captured by Hubble
New images from the Hubble Space Telescope have captured a rare occurrence as three of the Jupiter's largest moons - Europa, Callisto and Io - parade across the giant gas planet's banded face...
4 February 2015
Study questions whether lab-grown cells are a faithful model for studying human disease
Studies of human diseases such as cancer rely on the use of laboratory-grown cell cultures that have often been grown for decades. Now, new research indicates that these cell cultures may not be a reliable copy of real tissue; a finding that casts doubt on the interpretation of many past studies...
28 January 2015
Selfie shots used to monitor mental health
University of Rochester computer scientists have developed innovative software that turns smartphones into mental health monitoring devices. Describing the project at this week's American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference in Austin, Texas, researcher Jiebo Luo said the program analyzes "selfie" images and videos taken as the user engages with social media...
25 January 2015
Evolutionary biology could reveal a universal basis for morality
Recent developments in science appear to indicate that the emergence of life in general and perhaps even rational life, with its associated technological culture, may be common throughout the Universe. Now, a new paper appearing in the journal Space Policy suggests this universal tendency toward complexity has distinctly religious overtones and may even establish a truly universal basis for morality...
21 January 2015
Psychedelic use associated with decreased suicidal thinking, say researchers behind new study
The authors of a new study say psychedelics may hold promise in the prevention of suicide, and the highly restricted legal status of psychedelics should be reconsidered to facilitate further scientific study...
20 January 2015
Scientists discover "idiosyncratic" brain patterns in autism
New research shows that the brains of individuals with autism display unique synchronization patterns, a trait that could enable earlier diagnosis of the disorder and novel future treatments...
9 January 2015
Link found between circumcision and autism
Research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine suggests that regardless of cultural background, circumcised boys may run a greater risk of developing autism spectrum disorder...