5,012 results
- Neuroscience
Brain shot
Deciphering how the brain’s circuitry produces thought and behavior is an ambitious and enticing goal on the scale of the Apollo Program or the Human Genome Project. But the neuroscientists involved in a new federal effort have many challenges ahead.
- Math
Why Big Data is bad for science
Big Data is supposed to be a scientific bonanza, but it challenges the capabilities of computer science, statistical tests and perhaps calls for revamping the scientific method itself.
- Chemistry
A Tale of Seven Elements
Eric Scerri's book tells the story of filling in the periodic table of the elements.
- Health & Medicine
Gut-brain communication failure may spur overeating
Restoring a depleted molecule in obese mice repaired their abnormal response to food.
- Archaeology
Ancient Siberians may have rarely hunted mammoths
Occasional kills by Stone Age humans could not have driven creatures to extinction, researchers say.
- Quantum Physics
‘QBists’ tackle quantum problems by adding a subjective aspect to science
Advocates of a program called “Quantum Bayesianism” take a subjective approach to resolving the paradoxes of quantum physics.
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- Math
Rise of Big Data underscores need for theory
Big Data can help scientists cope with complex systems, but only with an appreciation of its limits and recognition of the need for theoretical modeling.
- Humans
Mother lode
Certain sugar molecules in human breast milk do more to foster beneficial microbes, and banish harmful ones, than they do to nourish newborns.
- Math
Flatland and its sequel bring the math of higher dimensions to the silver screen
In 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote a strange and enchanting novella called Flatland, in which a square who lives in a two-dimensional world comes to comprehend the existence of a third dimension but is unable to persuade his compatriots of his discovery. Through the book, Abbott skewered hierarchical Victorian values while simultaneously giving a glimpse of […]
- Math
Systems biology tunes in to cancer networks
If cable TV systems had a channel called The Cancer Network, doctors would be wise to tune in. But there’s no such channel. So for now, they’ll just have to read articles in scientific journals that publish papers on the science of networks. Scientists in the new field of systems biology have made a lot […]
- Health & Medicine
Ovarian cancer drug candidate passes early clinical test
An experimental medicine that uses a seek-and-destroy design to kill tumor cells may help some patients who face a recurrence.
