 Life on Alien Planets Trickier to Find Than Previously Thought  | Finding alien life on habitable planets around distant stars may be harder to identify than scientists have previously thought, a new study suggests.
| Read More » Scientists win Nobel for mapping body's 'cell traffic' system  | By Niklas Pollard and Julie Steenhuysen STOCKHOLM/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Three scientists won the Nobel medicine prize on Monday for plotting how cells transfer vital materials such as hormones and brain chemicals to other cells, giving insight into diseases such as Alzheimer's, autism and diabetes. Americans James Rothman, 62, Randy Schekman, 64, and German-born Thomas Suedhof, 57, separately mapped out one of the body's critical networks in which tiny bubbles known as vesicles enable cells to secrete chemicals such as insulin into the surrounding environment. ...
| Read More » Why Marsupials 'Mate Themselves to Death': Better Sperm  | The males of several species of insect-eating marsupials have a very unusual life history. They mature quickly, often in less than a year. Then, during a short and frenzied breeding season, they mate repeatedly — for up to 14 hours in some cases — until their immune systems crash and their bodies start to fall apart. Then they die. (Talk about going out with a bang.)
| Read More » 3D-Printed Bacteria May Unlock Disease Secrets  | Bacteria are often social creatures. Suspended in colonies of varying shapes and sizes, these microbes communicate with their brethren and even other bacterial species — interactions that can sometimes make them more deadly or more resistant to antibiotics.
| Read More » Scientists win Nobel for mapping body's 'cell traffic' system By Niklas Pollard and Julie Steenhuysen STOCKHOLM/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Three scientists won the Nobel medicine prize on Monday for plotting how cells transfer vital materials such as hormones and brain chemicals to other cells, giving insight into diseases such as Alzheimer's, autism and diabetes. Americans James Rothman, 62, Randy Schekman, 64, and German-born Thomas Suedhof, 57, separately mapped out one of the body's critical networks in which tiny bubbles known as vesicles enable cells to secrete chemicals such as insulin into the surrounding environment. ... Read More » 9% of Young People Admit to Sexual Violence Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. teens and young adults say they have forced or coerced another person to perform sexual acts, such as kissing, sexual touching or intercourse, a new study suggest. Read More » Besides Higgs, Who Might Get the Physics Nobel?  | Besides Higgs, Who Might Get the Physics Nobel?
| Read More » 5 Revolutionary Nobel Prizes in Medicine  | The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded today (Oct. 7) to a team of scientists who discovered how the body's cells transport molecules to the right locations. The advance joins a long line of biological breakthroughs, from the discovery of DNA's structure to the development of in vitro fertilization.
| Read More » City Life: Are Mountain Lions Back on the Prowl? Residents of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., could be forgiven for glancing over their shoulders when out for a stroll: Both cities have recently received reports of mountain lions living a whisker away from humans. Read More » Facebook Sparks Debate on Right to Use Teens in Ads Teens love Facebook, but the feeling may not be entirely mutual. Proposed changes to the social network's terms of service mean that advertisers could take advantage of teens' Facebook information just because the teens are Facebook members. Read More » Government Shutdown: Chilling Effects on Antarctic Research  | Scientists who risk their lives for Antarctic research fear their entire field season may be canceled because of the ongoing government shutdown.
| Read More » Amateur Astronomer Captures Amazing Photo of Iconic 'Pillars Of Creation'  | An amateur astronomer has captured an eye-catching view of one of the most famed cosmic sights: the so-called "Pillars of Creation" of the Eagle Nebula.
| Read More » Jupiter-Bound NASA Spacecraft Will Swing By Earth Wednesday  | A NASA probe will zip by Earth Wednesday (Oct. 9) in a slingshot-like manuever around our planet to build up speed for the long trip to Jupiter.
| Read More » Bacteria-Eating Crabs Call Seafloor Mud Volcano Home  | A bacterial mat sounds like the festering remains of a long-ago meal, not the main course. But crabs living on a methane-spewing mud volcano were recently spotted munching on a tangled, filmy web of bacteria, providing new evidence that the deep-sea creatures rely on a mixed diet.
| Read More » Human Ancestors' Oral Hygiene: The Toothpick  | Overuse of toothpicks might be one reason that explains the mystery of why the jaws of the oldest-known extinct human relatives found outside Africa could vary so much, researchers say.
| Read More » Diesel exhaust pollution may disrupt honeybee foraging  | By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Exposure to pollution from diesel exhaust fumes can disrupt honeybees' ability to recognize the smells of flowers and could in future affect pollination and global food security, researchers said on Thursday. In a study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, scientists from Britain's University of Southampton found that the fumes change the profile of the floral odors that attract bees to forage from one flower to the next. ...
| Read More » U.S. Nobel laureates worry about future of basic science By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - The kind of basic science that helped Randy Schekman win the coveted Nobel medicine prize might never have been funded if he had applied today. Schekman, along with two other U.S.-based winners of the 2013 medicine prize, Thomas Suedhof and James Rothman, slammed recent spending cuts at the National Institutes of Health, the biggest funder of scientific research in the world. The budget curbs were undermining the chances of breakthroughs and the next generation of basic research, they said. ... Read More » Nobel physics prize announcement delayed STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has delayed the announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in physics by at least an hour. Read More » Gravetop Sundial Reveals Lost Civilization's Tech Savvy  | A carved stone found marking a Bronze Age grave in the Ukraine is the oldest sundial of its kind ever found, a new study reveals.
| Read More » Cocoa Frog Among New Species Discovered in 'Pristine' Ecosystem  | A chocolate-covered frog and one of the tiniest dung beetles ever found are among the new species discovered during a survey of what scientist called one of the most "pristine" environments left on Earth.
| Read More » NASA's new moon probe settles into lunar orbit  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Oct 7 - Politics may be keeping most of NASA's workers home, but that didn't stop the U.S. space agency's new moon probe from achieving lunar orbit, officials said on Monday. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, blasted off on September 6 aboard a small rocket that placed the spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit around Earth. After three trips around the planet, LADEE on Sunday was in precise position to fire its braking rocket, let itself be captured by the moon's gravity and then settle into lunar orbit. ...
| Read More » Britain's Higgs, Belgium's Englert win 2013 physics Nobel prize  | By Mia Shanley and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. Half a century after their original work, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the CERN research centre's giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva. The discovery was hailed as one of the most important in physics. ...
| Read More » Englert and Higgs win Nobel physics prize  | STOCKHOLM (AP) — Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their theoretical discoveries on how subatomic particles acquire mass.
| Read More » Britain's Higgs, Belgium's Englert win 2013 physics Nobel prize  | By Mia Shanley and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. Half a century after their original work, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the CERN research centre's giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva. The discovery was hailed as one of the most important in physics. ...
| Read More » Factbox: A look at the 2013 Nobel Physics Prize LONDON (Reuters) - Here is a look at the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics, which was awarded jointly on Tuesday to Peter Higgs, a British physicist who proposed the existence of the boson nearly 50 years ago, and Belgium's Francois Englert: - The award to Higgs and Englert was for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. ... Read More » Trying to Get Pregnant (or Not)? The 'App for That' Has Limitations The deluge of apps now available that track women's periods and offer estimates about which days they may be most likely — or least likely — to conceive can be useful aids, but it's important that women are aware of the apps' limitations, experts say. Read More » Death Rates Higher in Booming Economy Death rates among middle-age and older people are higher when the economy is growing than when it's sliding into a recession, a new study finds. Read More » Britain's Higgs, Belgium's Englert win 2013 physics Nobel prize  | By Mia Shanley and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. Half a century after their original work, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the CERN research centre's giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva. The discovery was hailed as one of the most important in physics. ...
| Read More » Higgs boson, key to the universe, wins Nobel physics prize  | By Mia Shanley and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. Half a century after their original work, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) centre's giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva. The discovery was hailed as one of the most important in physics. ...
| Read More » Englert, Higgs win physics Nobel for particle mass  | STOCKHOLM (AP) — Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their theoretical discoveries on how subatomic particles acquire mass.
| Read More » Higgs Boson Physicists Snag Nobel Prize  | The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two physicists who predicted the existence of the elusive Higgs boson particle, which is thought to explain why other particles have mass, the committee announced today (Oct. 8).
| Read More » Quick Fusion-Powered Trips to Mars No Fantasy, Scientists Say  | Sending astronauts to Mars aboard a superfast spacecraft powered by nuclear fusion may seem like a sci-fi dream, but it's entirely attainable, scientists say.
| Read More » Shape of Huge Asteroid with 2 Moons Revealed By SETI, Amateur Astronomers  | Scientists have learned some key characteristics of a gigantic asteroid and its two moons, with a bit of help from sharp-eyed amateur astronomers.
| Read More » Hack-Proof Pacemakers: Code Based on Heartbeat Could Thwart Disruption In the second season of the TV show "Homeland," terrorists assassinated the vice president of the United States (played by Jamey Sheridan) by hacking into his Wi-Fi-enabled pacemaker, and inducing a heart attack. Read More » US Ivory Crush Canceled in Wake of Shutdown In a bid to discourage poachers and wildlife traffickers, federal officials had planned to pulverize 6 tons (5.4 tonnes) of illegal elephant ivory this week, but the event has been canceled due to the lapse in government funding. Read More » Higgs Boson Predictors Awarded the 2013 Nobel Physics Prize Higgs Boson Predictors Awarded the 2013 Nobel Physics Prize Read More » Nuclear Fusion: Laser-Beam Experiment Yields Exciting Results  | The daydream of science-fiction fans and supervillains everywhere has inched one step closer to reality: Scientists have demonstrated a new technique for nuclear fusion, the process that fuels stars like the sun, that doesn't produce hazardous particles.
| Read More » Surprise: Ashkenazi Jews Are Genetically European The origin of the Ashkenazi Jews, who come most recently from Europe, has largely been shrouded in mystery. But a new study suggests that at least their maternal lineage may derive largely from Europe. Read More » 2 win physics Nobel for Higgs boson theory  | STOCKHOLM (AP) — It took nearly 50 years, but Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for figuring out how the universe's most basic building blocks acquire mass and form the world we know today.
| Read More » Higgs Boson's Nobel Nod Marks 'Fantastic Day' for Particle Physics  | The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded today (Oct. 8) to two physicists who predicted the existence of the renowned Higgs boson particle nearly 50 years ago, and scientists around the world were quick to offer their praise, calling it "a fantastic day for particle physics."
| Read More » Scene of 1,500-Year-Old Massacre Uncovered in Sweden  | At the site of an ancient island fort in Sweden, archaeologists have uncovered the victims of a sudden massacre, whose bodies were frozen in time for centuries much like the victims of Pompeii.
| Read More » DNA Tests Unlock Secrets of Mysterious Bryde's Whales  | The poorly understood Bryde's whale presents a conservation conundrum for biologists, but genetic fingerprints could finally help researchers keep tabs on the species and protect vulnerable populations.
| Read More » A glance at secret process behind Nobel delay  | STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Prize judges delayed the announcement of the physics winner by an hour Tuesday — but they can't say why for 50 years.
| Read More » Meteorites from Russian Meteor Explosion Reveal Signs of Cosmic Crashes  | Meteorites that fell to Earth when a fireball exploded over Russia earlier this year show evidence of earlier cosmic collisions, a new study reveals.
| Read More » 'Dark universe' beckons as research target after Higgs boson wins Nobel By Robert Evans GENEVA (Reuters) - With the Higgs boson in the bag, the head of the CERN research center urged scientists on Tuesday to push on to unveil the "dark universe" - the hidden stuff that makes up 95 per cent of the cosmos and is still a mystery to earthbound researchers. Rolf Heuer spoke after the Nobel physics prize went to Briton Peter Higgs and Belgian Francois Englert for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle, which explains how fundamental matter got the mass to form stars and planets. ... Read More » | 
