Those who watch the sun are regularly treated to brilliant shows -- dancing loops of solar material rise up, dark magnetic regions called sunspots twist across the surface, and dazzling flares of light and radiation explode into space. But there are smaller, barely visible events, too: much smaller and more frequent eruptions called nanoflares. Depending on how many and how energetic these are,...

The loss of lab animals at New York University's Langone Medical Center to Hurricane Sandy has the potential to be devastating to medical research. However, a scientist from Houston who has been through something similar says there's a silver lining to this cloud.

Regular physical activity may help older people reduce their chances of getting dementia.

Losing an hour of daylight can be linked with negative effects on the mind and body, including disturbed sleep patterns, seasonal depression and obesity, say researchers.

The Mars rover has made yet another fascinating discovery -- the soil inside Mars' Gale Crater contains minerals you'd likely find in the volcanic soil of Hawaii.

Particles engineered to spontaneously self-assemble like atoms forming molecules could give rise to new high-tech materials, leading to better optical displays and faster computer chips, researchers...

An underwater canyon in the Atlantic, high buildings, and a flood-prone underground make New York City particularly vulnerable to storms, experts say.

Adding an angiogenesis inhibitor to treatment with a HER2-inhibiting drug could improve outcomes for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer who develop brain metastases. Investigators report the first preclinical study combining antiangiogenic and anti-HER2 drugs in an animal model of brain metastatic breast...

In one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted, an international team of scientists has thrown new light on the genetic basis of the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the two most common forms of IBD, are chronic inflammatory digestive...

Remember Watson? The supercomputer made star status when it competed on the game show Jeopardy. Now, IBM and Cleveland Clinic are collaborating to give Watson a new assignment: helping healthcare workers make faster decisions. The IBM researchers who created Watson will work with Cleveland Clinic clinicians, faculty and medical students to build up the capabilities of Watson's Deep Question...

Investigators have discovered a protein on the surface of lung cancer cells that could prove to be an important new target for anti-cancer therapy. A series of experiments in mice with lung cancer showed that specific targeting of the protein with monoclonal antibodies reduced the size of tumors, lowered the occurrence of metastases and substantially lengthened survival...

There's new hope in the fight against Huntington's disease. Scientists have helped design a compound that suppresses symptoms of the devastating disease in mice. The compound is a synthetic antioxidant that targets mitochondria, an organelle that serves as a cell's power plant. Oxidative damage to mitochondria is implicated in many neurodegenerative...

We humans organize ourselves in myriad kinds of social groups, from scout troops and sports teams to networks of colleagues and classmates. But how do these social groups work? How do we decide whom to trust and whom to follow? And how do we deal with people that don't fit the norms of our social groups? New research explores these issues by examining various facets of social perception and...

Sea levels are rising faster than expected from global warming, and geologists now have a good idea why. The last official IPCC report in 2007 projected a global sea level rise between 0.2 and 0.5 meters by the year 2100. But current sea-level rise measurements meet or exceed the high end of that range and suggest a rise of one meter or more by the end of the...

Three studies provide new information on diet and blood pressure in kidney disease patients: adding fruits and vegetables to the diet improves kidney disease patients' health; poor nutrition plays a role in the link between poverty and kidney disease; and among kidney disease patients, Blacks are more likely to have uncontrolled blood pressure than Whites, the research...

A team of researchers spent days tracking Hurricane Sandy's power outage potential as the storm made its deadly march up eastern seaboard. The researchers fed weather forecasts as well as real-time and historic hurricane data into a computer model to predict the total number of power outages. How'd they do? Their predictions were accurate overall, when compared with figures released by the federal...

Scientists have found the first gene for beer foam, a discovery which they say will help researchers perfect the frothy "head" atop a freshly poured pint.

Autonomous cars are sophisticated and fast, but they can't quite beat human drivers yet.

Cheap, flexible solar cells made from carbon could be coated on everything from buildings to cars to generate power.

If Apple thought it could spin its way out of a U.K. court-ordered apology to Samsung, the iPhone maker needs to think again. A U.K. judge had mandated Apple post a notice on its Web site that the design of three Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets does not infringe on Apple's patented design. But Apple got creative in the language of the posting, essentially marketing the iPad at Samsung's expense....

Two spacewalking astronauts troubleshot an ammonia leak in the International Space Station's cooling system today (Nov. 1), accomplishing the chief objective of their marathon excursion outside the orbiting...

Space shuttle Atlantis isn't going far to its retirement home at Kennedy Space Center's main tourist stop. But it might as well be a world away for the workers who spent decades doting on Atlantis and NASA's other...

Avatar-like technology gets a test drive -- with rats.

Two spacewalking astronauts worked on a leaky radiator system outside the International Space Station on Thursday, just hours after the vessel barely dodged a menacing piece of orbiting junk. The U.S. space agency NASA ordered the space station to change position Wednesday to avoid a fragment from a communication satellite that was destroyed in a high-speed collision three years ago....