News

Life

Genes are no crystal ball for disease risk

For most conditions, knowing a person’s entire genetic makeup won’t help predict his or her medical history.

Life

Virus proves protective against lupus in mice

A mouse version of Epstein-Barr seems to prevent, not trigger, symptoms of the autoimmune disease.

Life

Old cancer drugs offer new tricks

Drugs that reboot genetic programming make tumor cells more susceptible to cancer-killing therapy.

Health & Medicine

Jolt to brain aids language recovery

Stroke patients treated with brain stimulation show improvement in language skills.

Humans

From the ashes, the oldest controlled fire

A South Africa cave yields the oldest secure evidence for a blaze controlled by human ancestors.

Astronomy

New data support Einstein on accelerating universe

New measurements of distant galaxies support Einstein’s cosmological constant as the explanation for the universe’s accelerating expansion.

Health & Medicine

Brain scan foretells who will fold under pressure

Tests on high-stakes math problems reveal key regions of brain activity linked to choking under pressure.

Chemistry

For truffle aroma, it’s not all about location

Genes, not environment, play a key role in the prized fungus’s scent.

Life

Pesticide-dosed bees lose future royalty, way home

Unusual field tests reveal how common insecticides, even at nonfatal doses, can erode colonies and threaten the future of bumblebees and honeybees.

Chemistry

Life’s building blocks grow close to home

Chemical reactions in the early solar system create complex organic molecules.

Health & Medicine

Mapping the brain’s superhighways

New scans created using diffusion MRI technique reveal an order to information flow in the mind.

Physics

Cloaks for hiding heat

A proposed invisibility cloak for heat could shield computers or satellites from high temperatures.