A superfamily of genes involved in the most common human cancers not only fosters tumor growth but also helps shut down immune system defenses against the cancer, according to a recent study.
Emerging infectious diseases, in particular chytridiomycosis, are responsible for drastic declines in amphibian diversity around the world. Determining the factors that influence these pathogens and how they spread can help scientists understand the dynamics involved.
The chameleon's catapulting tongue and the bloodworm's burrowing proboscis inspired the creation of a soft touch robotic mechanism that can manipulate delicate objects without damaging them.
A prevailing scientific scenario for the chemical origin of life focuses on RNA (ribonucleic acid) and proteins, biopolymers that without which there would be no life today. But a new study suggests that it's not plausible that these complex molecules could spontaneously appear prebiotically.
All human and animal life involves some level of risk assessment in daily life. Now a group of researchers, led by George Montanez, an assistant professor at Harvey Mudd College in California, has used computer simulations to quantify how the ability to calculate risk can affect survival.
Psychology increasingly characterizes cognition as the process of an individual acting in the environment in which he or she develops, instead of a kind of computational processing of information in the brain.
How natural selection eliminates harmful mitochondrial DNA mutations in mammalian egg cells (oocytes) is a subject of current scientific debate and is under examination by a London university research team.
An automated framework can help scientists in predicting the properties of materials from molecular simulations and are important in making it faster and easier to to understand biological and chemical phenomena, according to a research team.
How should we think about historical figures who continue to be relevant to philosophical, scientific and political thinking today?
Nearly 10% of adolescent or teenage girls become pregnant annually, making teen pregnancy a major concern worldwide. A study of the problem in the Nsukka area of Enugu state in Nigeria probed the causes and consequences of teen pregnancies.
Is there meaning and purpose in the universe? This often-debated question is the subject of a June 13 paper by Nobel laureate Brian Josephson and available as a preprint from Research Gate.
Personalized medicine, which looks at genetic risk scores to understand a person's health, has growing support among doctors and scientists.
"Watching physics at the Olympics," a short article by Dr. Adrian Bejan, made me wish the author had been my high school physics teacher, because he makes the subject fun, interesting and instructive.
Computational predictions for how a genetic variant will affect a protein's function are very important. For example, this can help determine whether a specific variant is causing a disease.
How life originated on Earth is a complex question that has been the subject of inquiry for hundreds of years by curious individuals as well as specialists in science, religion, and philosophy.
In an intriguing look at the origins of cognition and technology in nature, theoretical chemist Addy Pross explores how nature discovered its own laws twice--first unconsciously and later consciously.
Selection of new genetic mutations that are beneficial puts some organisms within a population at an advantage compared to others. In some populations, the same beneficial mutation is more likely to take over than in other populations. The population structures that increase the likelihood of the successful takeover are known as "amplifiers of selection," because they enhance the effect of natural selection.
An interdisciplinary conference in Paris in March discussed how expanding knowledge of the way microbes interact with Earth’s environment is revolutionizing not only science and medicine, but the fields of law, philosophy and the arts.
Most studies of genetic risks for type 2 diabetes have focused only on people of European ancestry, although the prevalence of the disease is rising more rapidly in other populations.
Chronic osteomyelitis, a progressive infection in bone, can occur after treatment for acute osteomyelitis, a new infection in bone that usually results from injury.