University of Utah biologists genetically manipulated nematode worms so the animals were attracted to worms of the same sex - part of a study that shows sexual orientation is wired in the creatures' brains.
In the future everyone who is connected to the electric grid will be able to upload and download 'packets' of electricity to and from the network, according to one scenario by Dutch researcher Jos Meeuwsen of the Technical University Eindhoven.
James Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among blacks, retired today from his post at a prestigious research institution.
Sex differences in cognition and behavior--such as increased aggression in males--are usually thought to involve hormones, which can "masculinize" or "feminize" a brain temporarily or permanently. But now, a mouse study shows that some sex-linked genes don't need hormones to shape male and female behavior.
Global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries may trigger a new 'mass extinction event', where over 50 per cent of animal and plant species would be wiped out, warn scientists at the Universities of York and Leeds.
Severely restricting calories leads to a longer life, scientists have proved. New research now has shown for the first time that such a diet also can maintain physical fitness into advanced age, slowing the seemingly inevitable progression to physical disability and loss of independence.
A topic often left out of discussions about the promise of personalized medicine that science and society offers for the future is whether or not ordinary people want that extra responsibility. Does everyone want to know if they are susceptible to certain diseases?
In January 1955, Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, published a paper called "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life" in American Scientist, the journal of Sigma Xi, the scientific honor society. Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, he said in a telephone interview from his home in Tarrytown, N.Y. But today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want - from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention.
A Coast Guard reconnaissance team is heading to the far north this week to scope out a final frontier that is opening up to ship traffic in a warming Arctic climate.
IMAP has been a long-requested feature for Gmail, and according to the official Gmail blog, Google is starting to roll it out to users. If you don't know about IMAP, it keeps e-mail data synced across multiple devices. This means changes on your iPhone will show up on the Web, and on your Treo, or whatever.
