Humans
- Tech
Light can control waves in heart tissue
Researchers have used light to trigger and control electrical waves in the heart. The technique might one day provide new ways to treat heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
Some air pollutants seep through skin
The skin is the body’s largest organ. And it can let in as much or more of certain air pollutants than enter through the lungs, a new study finds.
- Microbes
Slime cities
Biofilms are like tiny cities of bacteria — some harmless, others destructive. Scientists are learning how to keep these microscopic metropolises under control.
- Brain
Lessons from failure: Why we try, try again
We all suffer failures. But we don’t always try again. Focusing on what they can be learned might help people keep going, brain imaging data now show.
- Genetics
The earliest evidence of plague
Plague is best known as the killer disease that wiped out nearly half of Europe during the 1300s. But the germ infected people up to 3,000 years earlier than that, DNA from ancient teeth now show.
- Health & Medicine
Internet use may harm teen health
Using the Internet more than two hours a day puts teens at risk of high blood pressure, a new study finds.
- Brain
Explainer: What is anxiety?
Anxiety is the stress linked to worries about an upcoming event — one that may not even happen. But anxiety can affect the body every bit as much as does the stress provoked by staring down a hungry lion.
- Health & Medicine
If you’re awake, you’re probably eating
The idea that we eat three meals a day is a myth. People eat nearly constantly, and that may not be good for our health.
- Health & Medicine
These bubbles treat wounds
New research shows bubble-powered drugs can travel upstream, against the flow of blood, to seal wounds shut.
- Brain
Study challenges safety for teens of two depression drugs
Scientists reanalyze data on the safety of common drugs to treat depression and find that they don’t seem to help teens. Worse, the drugs may harm them.
- Microbes
News Brief: People shed clouds of tell-tale germs
Even after someone has left a room, a cloud of his or her germs laces the air, new data show. Watch out: That mix can be very individual — and even ID you!
- Animals
Cool Jobs: Finding new uses for nature’s poisons
Scientists study toxins and other natural compounds in search of alternatives to ineffective antibiotics and dangerous pesticides.
