Science

Sour taste allows for the detection of hydrogen ions and organic acids. It is one of the five basic tastes and, along with other chemical and textural features, allows animals from flies to humans to discriminate between foods that are safe and appealing from other options that are dangerous. Now, …

Statin therapy produces significant reductions in major vascular events irrespective of age, including in people older than 75 years, according to a new study published in The Lancet. Statins produce significant reductions in major vascular events, but there is less direct evidence of benefit among patients older than 75 years …

A new study published in the journal Food Webs provides additional evidence that wildlife is abundant in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a large area of contamination around the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Ten mammalian and five bird species were documented scavenging fish carcasses in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone including Eurasian otters …

  China is in the middle of a multi-part mission to explore the moon with unmanned landers, the most recent of which is Chang’e-4. This intrepid little probe made history when it became the first object to make a soft landing on the far side of the moon. Now, it’s …

A giant Jovian storm called Oval BA is captured in an amazing new video from NASA’s Juno mission. Oval BA and the famed Great Red Spot. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstaedt / Sean Doran. Oval BA is approximately 5,000 miles (8,000 km) across …

A team of physicists at the University of California, Riverside, has produced the first ‘electron-hole liquid’ at room temperature. In conventional electronic devices, electricity requires the movement of electrons (blue spheres) and their positive counterparts, called holes (red spheres), which behave much like the gas molecules in our atmosphere. Although …

A team of microbiologists has isolated 105 completely new species of bacteria from healthy people’s intestines. Forster et al created the most comprehensive collection of human intestinal bacteria to date. About 2% of a person’s body weight is due to bacteria and the intestinal microbiome is a major bacterial site …

  Some 4.5 billion years ago, a Mars-sized rock is theorized to have collided with the proto-Earth. The collision is one of the only ways to create an Earth-Moon system with the properties we observe today. It also may have partially re-liquefied Earth’s surface, destroyed Chaotian property values, and created …

Today, giant pandas are represented by one iconic species, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, and they live only in the understory of particular mountains in southwestern China. They exclusively consume bamboo and have distinctive tooth, skull, and muscle characteristics adapted to a tough and fibrous bamboo diet. But according to new research by …

  Curiosity has been on Mars for more than six years, helping scientists unravel the geological history of the red planet. It has found evidence of ancient bodies of water, organic material, and more. Curiosity was outfitted with instruments for these tasks, but NASA has managed to repurpose one of …