US News | Science Discoveries

Waters from warmer latitudes, or subtropical waters, are reaching Greenland's glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss, reports a team of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Researchers at MIT have shown that they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery.

Neuroscientists at MIT have developed a powerful new class of tools to reversibly shut down brain activity using different colors of light. When targeted to specific neurons, these tools could potentially lead to new treatments for the abnormal brain activity.

A new study led by Oregan State University shows that declining populations of "apex" predators such as wolves, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller "mesopredators" that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions.

New research out of Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine says that cheaters may prosper in the short term, but over time they seem doomed to fail, at least in the microscopic world of amoebas where natural selection favors the noble.

Michigan State University researchers have designed robots that, in the future, could be ocean-going and cooperatively track moving targets underwater. Schools of swimming robots would be able to work together to do things that one could not do alone, such as tracking large herds of animals or mapping expanses of pollution that can grow and change shape.

Princeton University researchers have come up with a new twist on the mysterious visual phenomenon experienced by humans known as the "uncanny valley." That twist is that monkeys experience the same exact feeling. The uncanny valley describes that disquieting feeling that occurs when viewers look at representations designed to be as human-like as possible.

Longer toes and a unique ankle structure provide some sprinters with the burst of acceleration that separates them from other runners, according to biomechanists at Penn State University.

A new analysis of climate risk, published by researchers at MIT and elsewhere, shows that even moderate carbon-reduction policies now can substantially lower the risk of future climate change. It also shows that quick, global emissions reductions would be required in order to provide a good chance of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.

Plants may not have eyes and ears, but they can recognize their siblings, and researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered how. Plants recognize family members by detecting chemical cues secreted by their roots. The finding not only sheds light on the intriguing chemical sensing system in plants, but also may have implications for agriculture and even home gardening.

A new study done by researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that when a TV is on in a room both the quantity and the quality of the interactions between parents and their children drops. The researchers studied about 50 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds, each of whom was placed with one of their parents in two half-hour sessions.

A new computer algorithm developed at the University of Washington uses hundreds of thousands of tourist photos to automatically reconstruct entire cities in about a day. The tool harnesses the increasingly large digital photo collections available on photo-sharing Web sites such as Flickr.

An international team of scientists has for the first time thoroughly described Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The female skeleton, nicknamed Ardi, is 4.4 million years old, 1.2 million years older than the skeleton of Lucy.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say you're more likely to scan a room, jumping from object to object as you search for something. In addition, the timing of these jumps appears to be determined by waves of activity in the brain that act as a clock.

University of Utah mathematicians have developed a brand new cloaking method that functions through wave cancellation and could someday shield submarines from sonar, planes from radar, buildings from earthquakes, and coastal structures from tsunamis. Most previous research used interior cloaking, where the cloaking device envelops the cloaked object. Researchers say this new method "is the first active, exterior cloaking" technique.

Stanford engineers and others have created a structural design that lets buildings rock during earthquakes, then correct themselves when the shaking stops, confining damage to replaceable steel "fuses."

A Northwestern University study is the first of its kind and demostrates that having musical training can help a listener distinguish between background noise and sound that the listener is meant to hear.

Oregon State University researchers are pioneering the concept of "rich interaction" -- computers that do, in fact, want to communicate with, learn from, and get to know you better as a person.

University of Illinois researchers report that they have assembled a new cancer drug delivery system that, in a cell culture, is able kill tumor cells and spare healthy cells.

An international team of researchers deduced that early modern humans living on the coast of the southern tip of Africa used fire to increase the quality and the effectiveness of their stone tools.

A hyper-realistic Einstein robot at the University of California, San Diego has learned to smile and make facial expressions through a process of self-guided learning.

Reseachers at the University of Michigan are using sound waves to push sample fluids through tiny detectors that are only millimeters or centimeters in size.

Using nanodiamonds, researchers at Northwestern University have deomonstrated a method for delivering and releasing curative medicines to a specific location in the body.

A team of computer scientists at the University of Washington developed a prototype system called Vanish that can place a time limit on information uploaded to the internet that causes all the information to become useless when the time is up.

Chemists at Stanford University have created new algorithms that use the computer technology behind today's video game systems to rapidly calculate and depict the structure of molecules.

A new study out of Harvard and the University of Virginia finds that you are more likely to know what will make you happy if you ask a total stranger. Another person's experiences are often more informative than your own best guess.

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, are studying the physical property of repelling water known as super-hydrophobia. Through computer aided tests, researches pinpointed what allows the surface of some plants and animals to always repel water.

The threat of climate change can still be greatly diminished if nations cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent during this century. Global temperatures would still rise, but events like sea-level rise might be partially avoided.

A Caltech biologist and his research team have indentified how the antennea of fruit flies process the feeling of wind and then how the flies respond by standing completely still.

Researchers at Cornell University and the University of Melbourne, Australia, are fabricating organic semiconducting materials from a gentle solvent called Supercritical Carbon Dioxide.

A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has determined that gases rising from deep within the Earth, fuel the world's highest known microbial ecosystems, which were detected near the rim of the Socompa volcano in the Andes.

Two researchers at Brigham Young University are studying the impacts of global warming on Antartica's ecosystem by looking at the relationship between rising temperatures and a specialized worm that makes its own antifreeze.

Scientists at the Universities of Maryland and Michigan along with those at the Joint Quantum Institute have, for the first time ever, sucessfully teleported information between two atoms at a distance of one meter.

New research conducted by the Univeristy of Washington and Stanford University shows that a rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously damage crop production within the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century.

A research team at the University of Wisconsin at Madison has uncovered what makes plastics so malleable. Molecules that make up plastics can rearrange themselves up to 1,000 times faster while under stress, giving them the ability to flow or bend.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida are teaming up with the Virtual Reality Medical Center to immerse stroke survivors in a virtual game-world that is full of flying insects with the goal of expanding the survivors' range of movement.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities are studying a remarkable species of becteria that produces electric current when attached to a graphite electrode or other conductive surface.

A research team at Penn State University has used chemicals to create nano-motors that drive nanoparticles from one location to another.

Researchers at Purdue University and The Catholic University of America have proposed a new mechanism for how the motor inside of a virus works in order to propel the virus from one location to another.

A professor at Brown University has determined that men's faces tend to have a more reddish skin tone, while a greenish facial skin tone is more common for women.

Georgetown University researcher studies subset of bottlenose dolphin that uses marine sponges as a tool to hunt for food.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities are studying a remarkable species of becteria that produces electric current when attached to a graphite electrode or other conductive surface.

Brain scans of young, aggressive bullies suggest they may actually enjoy seeing others in pain, according to a new University of Chicago study.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida are teaming up with the Virtual Reality Medical Center to immerse stroke survivors in a virtual game-world that is full of flying insects with the goal of expanding the survivors' range of movement.

An ultra-high-strength composite metal foam developed by engineers at North Carolina State University helps absorb the energy from impacts better than any known metal foam, offering applications in many safety devices.

Nalini Nadkarni of Evergreen State College currently advises a team of researchers, who also happen to be inmates at Cedar Creek Corrections Center, on how best to cultivate slow-growing mosses that are reguarly stripped from Pacific Northwest forests by horticulturalists.

Iowa State researchers are working on creating high tech networks of underground sensors that could be buried throughout a farmer's field to supply the farmer with constant feedback on soil moisture and other ground conditions.

A Northwestern University research team has developed a promising nanomaterial-based biomedical device that could be used to deliver chemotheraphy drugs locally to sites where cancerous tumors have been surgically removed.

Pine bark beetles appear to be doing more than killing large swaths of forests in the Rocky Mountains. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suspect that their hunger for trees is also altering local weather patterns and air quality.

Research teams from Virent Energy Systems and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have successfully converted sugar--potentially derived from agricultural waste and non-food plants--into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and a range of other valuable chemicals.