Science

A new analysis of Chusang, an archeological site on the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau, suggests that permanent residents may have set up camp thousands of years sooner than previously thought. These fossilized human footprints near Chusang, Tibet, were made between 13,000-7,400 years ago, according to a new analysis. Image credit: Mark …

A team of scientists at Michigan State University has discovered that a potential new drug, called CCG-203971, reduces the spread of melanoma cells by up to 90%. The findings are published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Melanoma is a disease in which malignant cells form in melanocytes. Image credit: …

Planetary researchers using data from NASA’s New Horizons mission have found evidence of snow and ice features on the dwarf planet Pluto that, until now, had only been seen on Earth. The findings appear this week in the journal Nature. In this extended color image of Pluto taken by NASA’s …

A team of materials scientists and physicists from the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology has discovered a way to confine the behavior of electrons by using extremely high magnetic fields. The team’s results are published in the …

A team of researchers at the University of York, UK, has harnessed the therapeutic effects of carbon monoxide-releasing molecules to develop a new antibiotic which could be used to treat gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria. This illustration depicts a 3D computer-generated image of a number …

DOIs, or Direct Object Identifiers, are fantastically useful little strings of text that serve to uniquely identify research papers, so that no matter what database you’re querying and no matter what paper you’re linking to, you’ll get the right thing back. Unlike books in a library, which can have later …

CT scans of the fossilized skull of Dwykaselachus oosthuizeni — a shark-like fish that lived during the Permian period, around 280 million years ago — reveal the origin of chimaeras, a group of cartilaginous fish related to sharks. The research appears today in the journal Nature. Reconstruction of the early …

New experimental antibiotics developed by chemists at the University of Connecticut successfully treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. The success is due to their strategy, which found a weakness and exploited it in a way the bacteria should have trouble countering. Stephanie M. Reeve et al. identified two plasmid-borne genes …

The International Space Station is getting on in years, and at some point in the next decade we’re going to learn the date of its shutdown. But what comes next? A new company called Axiom Space has a plan to launch a commercial space station in the next few years, which …

Dutch string theorist Dr. Erik Verlinde insists on saying gravity doesn’t exist. The good professor clearly does not believe that if he stops holding onto his briefcase, it will do anything other than fall. But he definitely believes we’re thinking of it all wrong. And if it turns out he’s right, …