Science
Latest stories
'False Memories' Take Life in the Lab

Stressful events can often coincide with the creation of false memories, when people recall things that never happened, and scientists said Thursday they are learning more about this curious phenomenon.

A better understanding of false memories could help treat post-traumatic stress and possibly cut back on inaccurate eyewitness testimony that jails innocent people, experts say.

W140 Full Story
Study: The full Moon May Make it Hard to Sleep

Swiss researchers said Thursday that people really do have a hard time getting a good night's sleep when the moon is full, even when they can't see it.

The results of a study on 33 volunteers published in the journal Current Biology showed that people took longer to fall asleep at night and slept for a shorter time during a full moon.

W140 Full Story
Space Art Eyes Creativity in Tech at Smithsonian

The familiar exteriors of astronauts' spacesuits often hide all of the ingenuity and mechanics that are built inside the suits, which were first imagined as "wearable spacecraft."

Now a new art exhibit, "Suited for Space," opening Friday at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, highlights the creativity behind the suits that allowed humans to explore the moon and aspire to fly farther from Earth.

W140 Full Story
Team Examining Gulf Shipwreck Finds 2 Other Wrecks

Marine archaeologists made a thrilling discovery this week while examining a well-preserved shipwreck deep in the Gulf of Mexico — two other sunken vessels that likely went down with it during an early 19th century storm.

Much isn't known about the ships, including the flag or flags they sailed under and the year they sank about 170 miles (273 kilometers) southeast of Galveston. They came to rest 4,360 feet (1,300 meters), or nearly three-quarters of a mile, below the surface, making them the deepest Gulf or North American shipwrecks to have been systematically investigated by archaeologists, the researchers said.

W140 Full Story
U.S. Study: 'Embryonic-Like' Stem Cells Can't be Found

A U.S. company that promoted its stem cell discovery in partnership with the Vatican has come under fresh scrutiny by independent scientists who said Wednesday the cells do not exist.

Scientists at Stanford University said in the journal Stem Cell Reports they could not replicate NeoStem's findings of very small embryonic-like cells (VSELs) in the bone marrow of lab mice.

W140 Full Story
Oil Palm Genome Boosts Hopes for Tropical Forests

Sequencing of the oil palm, one of the world's most important crops, has pinpointed a gene that should boost yields and ease pressure on tropical rainforests, studies said on Wednesday.

Published in the scientific journal Nature, the genome highlights the role of an all-important gene called Shell, according to a probe led by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB).

W140 Full Story
Revealed: How Galaxies Go From Burst to Bust

Images from a nearby galaxy may have explained how star factories can bizarrely slow down, astronomers reported on Wednesday.

Astrophysicists have long puzzled why the Universe has very few galaxies with a high mass, even though there are many galaxies that create stars at a phenomenal rate, sometimes a hundred times greater than our own Milky Way.

W140 Full Story
Arctic Methane Breach an 'Economic Time Bomb'

Massive leakage of methane from thawing shoreline in the Arctic would devastate the world's climate and economy, a trio of scientists warned on Wednesday.

Billions of tonnes of this potent greenhouse gas are locked in the shallow frozen shelf of the Arctic Ocean, which warms when summer sea ice retreats as a result of the greenhouse-gas effect, they said in a contribution to Nature.

W140 Full Story
Swiss Scientists Make Microchips that Mimic the Brain

Researchers in Switzerland say they have made microchips that imitate the way our brains process information, unlocking some of the mystery around how the world's most efficient computer functions.

Scientists at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, together with colleagues in Germany and the United States, created electronic systems comparable to a human brain both in size, speed and energy consumption, the university said in a statement late Monday.

W140 Full Story
Threads are Secret to Mussels' Magical Staying Power

Fine dangling filaments give mussels an extraordinary ability to cling to rocks and ship hulls and survive the ocean's battering, scientists said on Tuesday.

Mussels have long been feted for the glue with which they adhere to surfaces in the harsh marine environment -- a cement that chemists are trying to reproduce for industrial purposes.

W140 Full Story