Oct 05 Epic yawns boost brain growth, study says By Sharon Begley, STAT If you have a big brain, you can credit yawning for promoting brain growth and activity, the researchers found. And if you have a small brain, you can blame the fact that you don’t yawn long enough. Continue reading
Oct 05 World's tiniest machines win 2016 Nobel Chemistry Prize for three researchers By Nsikan Akpan Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa split the 2016 Nobel Chemistry Prize for building the world's smallest machines out of chemical molecules. Continue reading
Oct 04 Watch 3:22 News Wrap: EU backing pushes Paris climate pact into effect By PBS News Hour In our news wrap Tuesday, the path is now clear for the Paris climate change accord to take effect. It got backing from enough countries to account for 55 percent of global emissions. Also, there’s a new surge in the… Continue watching
Oct 04 Why it's so hard to beef up protections for the world's most trafficked animal By Gretchen Frazee A new international agreement plans to ban the trade of the world's most trafficked animal: the pangolin. Continue reading
Oct 04 Nobel physics winners defined new class of exotic matter By Nsikan Akpan The 2016 Nobel Prize in physics is shared by three scientists -- David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz -- for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter. Here's what that means. Continue reading
Oct 03 Why this Japanese scientist won a 2016 Nobel Prize in medicine for cell 'self-eating' By Nsikan Akpan Cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi wins the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discoveries in autophagy. Wait, what's autophagy?… Continue reading
Oct 02 Watch 9:57 Full interview: Can DNA tests help repair social ruptures from transatlantic slavery? By PBS News Hour Continue watching
Oct 02 Can DNA tests help repair social ruptures from transatlantic slavery? By Kamala Kelkar Author Alondra Nelson talks about how African-Americans in the past decade are using DNA tests to fill in identity gaps after the Middle Passage. Continue reading
Oct 01 The flu vaccine is set to get a makeover By Helen Branswell, STAT The World Health Organization recommended that flu vaccine manufacturers swap out a component based on one flu virus with an updated version. Continue reading
Sep 30 Watch Could hackers compromise November election results? By PBS News Hour Since the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, there has been growing concern about cyber-manipulation of election results this November. Voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona were penetrated in June, and the FBI reported this week on attempts against… Continue watching