The new function of unused cortical regions is not necessarily determined by the function of nearby cortical regions, according to new research in adults born without one hand.

An international team of scientists has developed a genetic engineering tool that makes producing and analyzing microbial secondary metabolites -- the basis for many important agricultural, industrial, and medical products -- easier than ever before, and could even lead to breakthroughs in biomanufacturing.

Cancer cells are masters at avoiding detection, but a new system can make them stand out from the crowd and help the immune system spot and eliminate tumors that other forms of immunotherapies might miss.

The intensity of summer algal blooms has increased over the past three decades, according to a first-ever global survey of dozens of large, freshwater lakes. Researchers used 30 years of data from the Landsat 5 near-Earth satellite and created a partnership with Google Earth Engine to reveal long-term trends in summer algal blooms in 71 large lakes in 33 countries on six continents.

Women who are health policy or health services researchers face a significant disparity in social media influence compared to their male peers, according to a new study. Although the average number of tweets among all researchers tend to be consistent, women trail behind men in follower counts, regardless of how active they are on Twitter.

Using advanced imaging, researchers have uncovered new information regarding traumatic microbleeds, which appear as small, dark lesions on MRI scans after head injury but are typically too small to be detected on CT scans. The findings published in Brain suggest that traumatic microbleeds are a form of injury to brain blood vessels and may predict worse outcomes. The study was conducted in part by...

New research reveals that glycans -- branched sugar molecules found in mucus -- can prevent bacteria from communicating with each other and forming infectious biofilms, effectively rendering the microbes harmless.

Topological insulators are innovative materials that conduct electricity on the surface, but act as insulators on the inside. Physicists have begun investigating how they react to friction. Their experiment shows that the heat generated through friction is significantly lower than in conventional materials. This is due to a new quantum mechanism, the researchers report.

Researchers showed in animal models that the default injury response of spinal discs can be temporarily stopped to allow for better treatment.

Scientists have created a nano-electronic circuit which vibrates without any external force. Just as a guitar string vibrates when plucked, the wire -- 100,000 times thinner than a guitar string -- vibrates when forced into motion by an oscillating voltage. The surprise came when they repeated the experiment without the forcing voltage. Under the right conditions, the wire oscillated of its own...

Scientists used maps of brain connections to predict how brain atrophy would spread in individual patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), adding to growing evidence that the loss of brain cells associated with dementia spreads via the synaptic connections between established brain networks.

Without fat, nothing works in the body: These substances serve as energy suppliers and important building blocks -- including for the envelopes of living cells. Numerous diseases are related to disorders in the fat metabolism, such as obesity or cancer. Researchers are now demonstrating how the fat metabolism can be monitored down to the individual liver cell of a mouse with the greatest...

Oaks have a complex evolutionary history that has long eluded scientists. New research, however, provides the most detailed account to date of the evolution of oaks, recovering the 56-million-year history that has made the oaks one of the most diverse, abundant and important woody plant groups to the ecology and economy of the northern hemisphere.

New research shows that unique materials with distinct properties akin to those of gecko feet - the ability to stick to just about any surface -- can be created by harnessing liquid-driven chaos to produce soft polymer microparticles with hierarchical branching on the micro- and nanoscale.

Scientists have uncovered a root cause of the growth of needle-like structures -- known as dendrites and whiskers -- that plague lithium batteries, sometimes causing a short circuit, failure, or even a fire. Such defects are a major factor holding back the batteries from even more widespread use and further improvement.

Astronomers have used a massive cluster of galaxies as an X-ray magnifying glass to peer back in time, to nearly 9.4 billion years ago. In the process, they spotted a tiny dwarf galaxy in its very first, high-energy stages of star formation.

Researchers have shown for the first time that a cheap catalyst can split water and generate hydrogen gas for hours on end in the harsh environment of a commercial electrolyzer -- a step toward clean, large-scale hydrogen production for fuel, fertilizer and industry.

Through a new scanning transmission electron microscopy method, researchers are able to observe electron distribution between atoms and molecules and uncover clues to the origins of ferroelectricity, the capacity of certain crystals to possess spontaneous electric polarization that can be switched by the application of an electric field. The research also revealed the mechanism of charge transfer...

Using innovative new methods researchers have built a new index that uses data from books and newspaper to track levels of national happiness from 1820. Their research could help governments to make better decisions about policy priorities.