Overall survival for patients with melanoma that has spread to the brain is only four to six months. Immunotherapies, which harness the power of the immune system to attack cancer cells, have garnered excitement in recent years for their potential to revolutionize the treatment of metastatic melanomas, but results from early clinical studies indicate that the prognosis for most patients remains...

As more and more electric cars are traveling on the roads of Europe, this is leading to an increase in the use of the critical metals required for components such as electric motors and electronics. With the current raw material production levels there will not be enough of these metals in future -- not even if recycling increases.

Researchers working to improve the performance of superconducting qubits, the foundation of quantum computers, have been experimenting using different base materials in an effort to increase the coherent lifetimes of qubits. The coherence time is a measure of how long a qubit retains quantum information, and thus a primary measure of performance. Recently, scientists discovered that using tantalum...

There are many effects of climate change. Perhaps the most broadly known is global warming, which is caused by heat building up in various parts of the Earth system, such as the atmosphere, the ocean, the cryosphere and the land. 89 percent of this excess heat is stored in the oceans, with the rest in ice and glaciers, the atmosphere and land masses (including inland water bodies). An...

Researchers demonstrated that it's possible to make carbon dioxide capture filters using 3D printing.

Some people live longer than others -- possibly due to a unique combination of bacteria in their intestines, new research concludes.

The overfishing of codfish spanning the second half of the 20th century indicates that human action can force evolutionary changes more quickly than widely believed, according to a new study.

Young babies make many squeals, vowel-like sounds, growls, and short word-like sounds such as 'ba' or 'aga.' Those precursors to speech or 'protophones' are later replaced with early words and, eventually, whole phrases and sentences. While some infants are naturally more 'talkative' than others, a new study confirms that there are differences between males and females in the number of those...

Researchers report that in the absence of visible landmarks, desert ants increase the likelihood that foraging nest mates will find their way home quickly and safely by elevating their nest entrance. Ant colonies whose nests are found deep in the Tunisian saltpan are particularly reliant on the self-made landmarks. If the mound at the nest entrance was removed, they immediately began building a...

For over a century, researchers have thought that the patterns of brain activity that define our experiences, hopes and dreams are determined by how different brain regions communicate with each other through a complex web of trillions of cellular connections. Now, a study has examined more than 10,000 different maps of human brain activity and found that the overall shape of a person's brain...

A team of researchers has created a new class of titanium alloys that are strong and not brittle under tension, by integrating alloy and 3D-printing process designs. They say they embedded circular economy thinking in their design, creating great promise for producing their new titanium alloys from industrial waste and low-grade materials.

Rare earth elements, like neodymium and dysprosium, are a critical component to almost all modern technologies, from smartphones to hard drives, but they are notoriously hard to separate from the Earth's crust and from one another. Scientists have discovered a new mechanism by which bacteria can select between different rare earth elements, using the ability of a bacterial protein to bind to...

Researchers have partnered to create a first-of-its-kind open-source, reproducible analysis platform for pediatric brain tumors. With the help of thousands of genomically sequenced samples, researchers have used this platform to identify initial findings about genetic variants associated with poorer outcomes that could help guide future diagnostic and therapeutic advances.

Scientists have taken the world's first X-ray SIGNAL (or SIGNATURE) of just one atom. This groundbreaking achievement could revolutionize the way scientists detect the materials.

According to new research, the amount of oxygen in one of 10 breaths was made possible thanks to a newly identified cellular mechanism that promotes photosynthesis in marine phytoplankton. The new study identifies how a proton pumping enzyme (known as VHA) aids in global oxygen production and carbon fixation from phytoplankton.

Researchers have succeeded in filming the interactions of light and matter in an electron microscope with attosecond time resolution.

Chess grandmasters are often held up as the epitome of thinking far ahead. But can others, with a modest amount of practice, learn to think further ahead? In addressing this question, a team of cognitive scientists has created a computational model that reveals our ability to plan for future events. The work enhances our understanding of the factors that affect decision-making and shows how we can...

Links have been reported between schizophrenia and proteins produced by the immune system that can act against one's own body, known as autoantibodies. Researchers have now identified autoantibodies that target a 'synaptic adhesion protein' in a subset of patients with schizophrenia. When injected into mice, the autoantibodies caused many schizophrenia-related changes.

Optical probes have led to numerous breakthroughs in applications like optical memory, nanopatterning, and bioimaging, but existing options have limited lifespans and will eventually 'photobleach.' New work demonstrates a promising, longer-lasting alternative: ultra-photostable avalanching nanoparticles that can turn on and off indefinitely in response to near-infrared light from simple lasers.

There's an intriguing exoplanet out there -- 400 light-years out there -- that is so tantalizing that astronomers have been studying it since its discovery in 2009. One orbit for WASP-18 b around its star that is slightly larger than our Sun takes just 23 hours. There is nothing like it in our Solar System. A new study about this exoplanet, an ultra-hot gas giant 10 times more massive than...

About two-thirds of the risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) is thought to arise from genetic influences, but about a third could be influenced by environment and lifestyle, opening the door for behavioral interventions that could delay or prevent pathophysiological changes that occur with AD. Now a new study in a mouse model of AD examines the effects of environmental enrichment on AD symptom...

Research using the world's most energetic laser has shed light on the properties of highly compressed matter -- essential to understanding the structure of giant planets and stars, and to develop controlled nuclear fusion, a process that could harvest carbon-free energy.

Geneticists have unearthed a major event in the ancient history of sturgeons and paddlefish that has significant implications for the way we understand evolution. They have pinpointed a previously hidden 'whole genome duplication' (WGD) in the common ancestor of these species, which seemingly opened the door to genetic variations that may have conferred an advantage around the time of a major mass...

Chemists add another powerful tool to their 'molecular editing' toolkit for crafting pharmaceuticals and other valuable compounds.