Latest news and updates about Science.
Featured Coverage
Explainers & Analysis
A new study shows that gene therapy can significantly improve hearing in people born with congenital deafness or severe hearing loss. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, working with hospitals and universities in China, treated ten patients and saw hearing improve in every case. "We and other researchers are expanding our work to other, more common genes that cause deafness, such as GJB2 and TMC1.
Fried foods are widely enjoyed, but their high fat content is linked to health issues such as obesity and hypertension. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are studying how microwave frying can improve the way French fries are made. In one study, the team partnered with researchers at Washington State University to use a specially designed microwave fryer.
NPR's science podcast Short Wave brings us stories on food fortification, why some people don't seem to get the flu, and a study on how much vigorous exercise you really need.
This juvenile warty frogfish was raised in captivity at the Shedd Aquarium. Brenna Hernandez/Shedd Aquarium hide.
For years, scientists could only prove that DOGS existed for 10,000 years — until now A new study genetically shows dogs existed almost 5,000 years earlier than scientists could prove. Science For years, scientists could only genetically prove that the first dogs existed about 10,000 years ago, but perhaps they were just barking up the wrong prehistoric tree. ANDERS BERGSTROM: We have confident genetic identification of dogs that lived at least 14,000 years ago in Europe.
Researchers report that a newly uncovered fossil ape from northern Egypt is changing how scientists view early hominoid evolution. Scientists generally agree that the earliest apes (stem hominoids) first appeared in Afro-Arabia during the Oligocene Epoch more than 25 million years ago.
The researchers launched two aerial drones and started filming. "We captured laboring and the moment that the fluke emerged from the mom," Gero said (whales are born tail-first). They used underwater microphones to record the whales clicking to each other beneath the water — their communication is the focus of Gero's work as lead biologist for Project CETI, a nonprofit whale research group.
A team of researchers led by the University of Oxford has developed a breakthrough food supplement that could help reverse the alarming decline of honeybees. Senior author Professor Geraldine Wright (Department of Biology, University of Oxford), said: "Our study demonstrates how we can harness synthetic biology to solve real-world ecological challenges. , not affiliated with the study) said: "We rely on honey bees to pollinate one in three bites of our food, yet bees face many stressors.
