News
- Psychology
Blood marker may predict suicide
People who killed themselves had higher levels of a gene involved in cell death.
- Health & Medicine
Power of sugar may come from the mind
Only people who believe exertion zaps willpower get a boost from glucose.
- Life
Years or decades later, flu exposure still prompts immunity
New forms of influenza viruses can spur production of antibodies to past pandemics in people who lived through them.
- Materials Science
Toylike blocks make lightweight, strong structures
Bucking trend toward reducing numbers of parts, MIT engineers suggest building planes from thousands of identical pieces.
By Meghan Rosen - Health & Medicine
Clues emerge to explain allergic asthma
Tests in mice reveal that allergens can trigger inflammation by cleaving a clotting protein.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Gut-brain communication failure may spur overeating
Restoring a depleted molecule in obese mice repaired their abnormal response to food.
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- Animals
Antarctic waters may shelter wrecks from shipworms
Ocean currents and polar front form 'moat' that keeps destructive mollusks at bay.
By Susan Milius - Quantum Physics
Quantum teleportation approaches the computer chip
Researchers speedily transmit information from one tiny circuit to another on solid-state device.
By Andrew Grant - Psychology
Mental disorder seen as ‘badness, not sickness’
Health workers tend to consider borderline personality disorder a tag for patients who are difficult or impossible to treat.
By Bruce Bower - Health & Medicine
Racial homogeneity in early childhood may affect brain
In lab study, kids who lived in single-race orphanages have difficulty interpreting emotions on faces with foreign features.
- Psychology
Ratio for a good life exposed as ‘nonsense’
A heralded calculation of people’s ability to flourish is a mathematical mirage, researchers say.
By Bruce Bower