All Stories by Brian Vastag
- Health & Medicine
Warming to a Cold War Herb
Benefiting from decades of research that took place behind the Iron Curtain, Western physicians are discovering Rhodiola rosea, a cold-weather herb that purportedly fights fatigue and boosts energy.
- Health & Medicine
Debate Renewed: Diabetes drug ups heart risk
A popular diabetes drug significantly increases the risk of heart failure and heart attack in those who take it.
- Anthropology
Advantage: Starch
An enhanced ability to digest starch may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage over their ape relatives.
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Barely Alive: Ancient bacteria survive in the slow lane
Microbes locked in 500,000-year-old permafrost appear to breathe and show other signs of very slow life.
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- Earth
Tiny tubes, big pollution
Making carbon nanotubes also produces a lot of airborne carcinogens.
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Light switch
A photosensitive molecule makes switching off a gene as simple as flicking on a light.
- Tech
Corny collagen
Corn engineered to produce collagen may someday replace slaughterhouse leftovers as a source of gelatin.
- Health & Medicine
Infectious Obesity: Adenovirus fattens stem cells
Some cases of obesity may result from infection by a virus that can transform adult stem cells into fat-storing cells.
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Bad News, Good News: ADHD-risk gene has silver lining
A gene variant that increases the risk for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder in young children also helps the problem resolve by the teen years.
- Health & Medicine
Serotonin lower in shift workers
Workers who rotate between day and night shifts have less of the brain chemical serotonin than day shift workers do.
- Animals
Gender bender
Disabling a chemical-sniffing organ crucial for courting behavior makes girl mice act like frisky boys.
