WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When the bones of the early armored dinosaur Scelidosaurus were unearthed in 1858 in west Dorset, England, they comprised the first complete dinosaur skeleton ever identified. But aside from cursory papers by pioneering British paleontol... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. COVID-19 often undiagnosed in frontline hospital workers A high ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Guided by ocean plankton fossils and climate models, scientists have calculated just how cold it got on Earth during the depths of the last Ice Age, when immense ice sheets covered large parts of North America, South America, Europe and ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Four bones found on a beach on the Isle of Wight, off England’s south coast, belong to a new species of theropod dinosaur, the group that includes Tyrannosaurus rex, researchers at the University of Southampton said on Wednesday. The new din... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have identified a chemical compound released by locusts that causes them to swarm, opening the door to possible new ways to prevent these insects from devouring crops vital to human sustenance as they have for millennia. Resea... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When scientists first unearthed fossils of a horned dinosaur called Centrosaurus in the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park in Canada’s Alberta province in 1989, they spotted a badly malformed leg bone they figured was a healed fracture... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian scientists said on Wednesday they have given five fly species scientific names that pay tribute to the Marvel comic universe, including one named for wise-cracking anti-hero Deadpool and another after superhero creator Stan Lee. T... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Coronavirus tricks the body into attacking the brain Numer... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugmaker Merck said on Wednesday it had agreed to supply its potential COVID-19 drug Rebif to European Union countries should orders be placed for the treatment. The comment followed a Reuters report earlier on Wednesday about a d... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New genetic research shows that there was mingling between ancient native peoples from Polynesia and South America, revealing a single episode of interbreeding roughly 800 years ago after an epic transoceanic journey. The question of suc... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Study may explain severity of COVID-19 in high-risk groups... More »
NAIROBI, (Reuters) – Eat them, poison them, and use scent to drive them to cannibalism – as a second wave of locusts threatens to devour East Africa’s crops, scientists in a Nairobi lab are experimenting with novel ways to kill them. Swarms are the worst for t... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. “Tentacles” on hijacked cells might help coronavirus sprea... More »
KINSHASA (Reuters) – The Democratic Republic of Congo has recorded up to 17 Ebola cases in a new outbreak of the deadly virus in the western province of Equateur, and 11 of those infected have died, medical authorities said on Monday. The authorities had repor... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have used human embryonic stem cells to create an embryo-like research model to help them study some of the earliest stages of human development. The model overcomes some of the ethical restrictions on using human embryos for rese... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – While some potential vaccines have emerged in the global race to find a way to stop the spread of COVID-19, many scientists and researchers believe antibody based therapies hold great promise for treating people already infected with the d... More »
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Scientists in Sweden are hoping an alpaca named Tyson can help deliver a knockout blow in the fight to develop a treatment or vaccine against the novel coronavirus that has killed nearly 400,000 people worldwide. After immunizing Tyson, a... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Convalescent plasma disappoints in Chinese trial Infusions... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Statins may help protect frail older people from ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The science of sewage surveillance could be deployed in countries across the world to help monitor the spread of national epidemics of COVID-19 while reducing the need for mass testing, scientists say. Experts in the field – known as wastewa... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Normal speech sprays droplets with contagious coronavirus The thou... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fragmentary bone fossils and a molar found in Bulgaria dated to roughly 45,000 years ago show that Homo sapiens populations swept into Europe – until then a bastion for the Neanderthals – earlier than previously known, scientists said on... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Men’s blood contains more of enzyme that helps coronaviru... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. New coronavirus antibody test highly accurate A new antib... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. New coronavirus is adapting to different populations A ge... More »
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Researchers at a Hong Kong university say they have developed an antiviral coating which could provide 90 days of “significant” protection against bacteria and viruses such as the one causing COVID-19. The coating, called MAP-1, took 10 y... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When paleontologist Thomas Mörs was peering into a microscope while sorting through tiny 40 million-year-old fossils unearthed on Seymour Island near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, he came across quite a surprise – hip and skull bon... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have figured out how to calculate the age of whale sharks – Earth’s largest fish – with some guidance from the radioactive fallout spawned by Cold War-era atomic bomb testing. By measuring levels of carbon-14, a naturally occu... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have extracted from dental enamel the oldest human genetic material ever obtained, helping clarify the pivotal place in the human evolutionary lineage of a mysterious extinct species called Homo antecessor known from Spanish c... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Face masks could help limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to researchers who studied the effect of surgical masks on the transmission of other corona and flu viruses. In the study, the use of surgical masks by sufferers sign... More »
(Reuters) – Drugs used for treating arthritis are being tested as treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus, as researchers rush to find ways of helping patients and slowing the number of infections. Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in an Iraqi cave already famous for fossils of these extinct cousins of our species is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead – and intriguing clues that flowers may have been used in such r... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists examining the genomes of West Africans have detected signs that a mysterious extinct human species interbred with our own species tens of thousands of years ago in Africa, the latest evidence of humankind’s complicated genetic... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new probe built by NASA and the European Space Agency set off on a blazing hot journey to the sun on Sunday to take the first close-up look at the star’s polar regions, a mission expected to yield insight into how solar radiant energy ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new spacecraft built jointly by U.S. and European space agencies is ready for a blazing journey to the sun to capture an unprecedented view of its two poles, an angle that could help researchers understand how the star’s vast bubble of... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world’s last woolly mammoths, sequestered on an Arctic Ocean island outpost, suffered from serious genetic defects caused by generations of inbreeding that may have hampered traits such as sense of smell and male fertility in the doo... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fireflies are under threat globally, with familiar hazards such as habitat loss and pesticides compounded by another peril: humankind’s ubiquitous nighttime artificial light that plays havoc with their balletic nocturnal courtship, scien... More »
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – An iguana-like creature with a needle-sharp snout has been confirmed from a fossilized skeleton as a species of the marine reptile thalattosaur previously unknown to science that roamed the coast of what is now Alaska some 200 mil... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A major scientific database run by China’s Tsinghua University has made its contents available free of charge from Wednesday in order to help researchers work from home, following a virus outbreak in the central city of Wuhan. The death to... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white overnight, according to folklore, before she was executed by guillotine in 1793 during the French Revolution. The ill-fated queen embodied an extreme example of the phenomenon of stress-induced grayin... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An exquisite fossil of a fierce little Chinese dinosaur dubbed the “dancing dragon” that lived 120 million years ago – an older cousin of the Velociraptor – is showing scientists that feathers grew differently on dinosaurs than on birds.... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group Inc (BX.N) has secured $3.4 billion from investors for its first fund dedicated to investments in the life sciences sector, targeting $4.6 billion in total, a regulatory filing showed on Thursday. At its ta... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A new type of therapy using feces and fake rubber hands may be able to help patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) overcome their fears of touching contaminated surfaces, according to new research. “OCD can be an extremely debilit... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A cousin of the starfish that resides in the coral reefs of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico lacks eyes, but can still see, according to scientists who studied this creature that expands the boundaries of the sense of sight in the animal... More »
(Reuters) – Bristol-Myers Squibb Co on Friday said it won a $752 million jury verdict against Gilead Sciences Inc in a U.S. patent dispute relating to technology for treating cancer. A jury in Los Angeles awarded the damages after finding that Yescarta, a trea... More »
JAKARTA (Reuters) – A cave painting found on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi, depicting human-like figures hunting animals, appears to be the earliest known pictorial record of story-telling, according to a study by a team of Australian and Indonesian researche... More »
(Reuters) – Nearly half of lymphoma patients treated with Gilead Sciences Inc’s Yescarta were alive at least three years after a one-time infusion of the CAR-T cell therapy, according to data presented on Saturday. Out of 101 patients teated with Yescarta for ... More »
(This Nov. 23rd story corrects fiscal year of expected regulatory approval in the 10th paragraph to March-end 2021, not March-end 2020) By Rocky Swift (Reuters) – Japan’s biggest drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, said long-term data show better outcomes... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – An additional six months of data from a late-stage trial of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co’s experimental dengue vaccine again showed it failed to protect against one of the four types of the virus in an important patient group, researchers said ... More »
(The Nov 16 story corrects to clarify in second graph that patients will be infused by a healthcare provider.) By John Miller and Carl O’Donnell (Reuters) – Novartis AG on Friday won U.S. approval for its experimental sickle cell disease drug, Adakveo, making ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Genetic material extracted from a 1.9 million-year-old fossil tooth from southern China shows that the world’s largest-known ape – an extinct creature dubbed “Giganto” that once inhabited Southeast Asia – was an oversized cousin of today... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A large ancient wetlands region spanning northern Botswana – once teeming with life but now dominated by desert and salt flats – may represent the ancestral homeland of all of the 7.7 billion people on Earth today, researchers said on Mo... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A revelatory cache of fossils dug up in central Colorado details as never before the rise of mammals from the post-apocalyptic landscape after an asteroid smacked Earth 66 million years ago and annihilated three-quarters of all species i... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists who resurrected a 50,000-year-old gene sequence have analyzed it to figure out how the world’s deadliest malaria parasite jumped from gorillas to humans – giving insight into the origins of one of human history’s biggest killers. ... More »
ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis said on Sunday that Kisqali helped women with advanced breast cancer after menopause live longer, adding to data the Swiss company hopes will help convince doctors to choose its drug over Pfizer’s blockbuster Ibrance. Kisqali plus t... More »
BARCELONA (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca both reported trial results that will likely make their competing drugs available to a wider group of ovarian cancer patients, possibly helping GSK catch its rival in a highly contested drug class. The two ... More »
(Reuters) – An experimental Amgen Inc drug that targets a specific genetic mutation shrank tumors in just one of 12 patients with advanced colorectal cancer who were given the highest dose in a small, early-stage trial, the company said on Saturday. The cancer... More »
KEY WEST, Fla. (Reuters) – Emily Hower, a research assistant at Nova Southeastern University doing field work on coral off Key West in Florida, bobs up out of the water and removes her diving mask. The news is not good. Most of the pillar coral that her team h... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. consumer and trade regulator said on Tuesday it had warned three companies selling products infused with cannabidiol that it was illegal to advertise that such products could fight disease without providing credible scientif... More »
APOLLO BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – Scientists in Florida have artificially induced reproductive spawning of an endangered Atlantic coral species for the first time in an aquarium setting, a breakthrough they say holds great promise in efforts to restore depleted r... More »
(Reuters) – Direct observations from a NASA space telescope have for the first time revealed the atmospheric void of a rocky, Earth-sized world beyond our own solar system orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy, according to a study released on Mo... More »
(Reuters) – Roche Holding AG has priced its personalized cancer treatment, Rozlytrek, at about $17,050 per month, nearly half of the monthly price of a rival drug from Bayer AG and Eli Lilly and Co that was approved last year. Roche’s drug and Bayer/Lilly’s Vi... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Celgene Corp’s Inrebic to treat certain rare forms of bone marrow cancer called myelofibrosis, making it the second approved drug to treat the disease. Inrebic belongs to a class of drugs kno... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Genetic research that reconstructed the past population dynamics of the cave bear, a prominent prehistoric denizen of Europe, implicates Homo sapiens rather than climate cooling in the Ice Age extinction of these brawny plant-loving beas... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd’s treatment for adult patients with a type of rare, non-cancerous tumor affecting joints and limbs. The label for the treatment, Turalio, includes a boxed warning flaggi... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States could bolster the battle against the Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo by allowing more of its experts to travel to the outbreak zone, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Friday. The virus ha... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak could last much longer and cost far more in money and lives unless U.N. member states inject hundreds of millions of dollars now, U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told Reuters on Monday. Spea... More »
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – Unidentified attackers killed two Ebola health workers in eastern Congo over the weekend, the health ministry said, the latest in a string of assaults that have hampered efforts to stop the deadly spread of the vi... More »
GOMA (Reuters) – Unidentified attackers killed two Ebola health workers in eastern Congo over the weekend, the latest in a string of assaults that have hobbled efforts to contain the second largest ever outbreak of the deadly virus, the health ministry said. T... More »
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The ancient Philistines, the Biblical villains whose origins have puzzled scholars for decades, came to the Middle East from southern Europe more than 3,000 years ago, new DNA testing has shown. The genetic findings came from skeletons un... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Monday said it would review whether Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can claim rights to a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, adding fuel to a rivalry between those insti... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A rogue Chinese scientist who caused outrage last year when he said he had created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies in an attempt to protect them from HIV may also have put them at risk with a “foolish” choice of gene, experts said on ... More »
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – U.S. government biologists have launched a special investigation into the deaths of at least 70 gray whales washed ashore in recent months along the U.S. West Coast, from California to Alaska, many of them emaciated, officials sai... More »
ZURICH/NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Novartis on Friday won U.S. approval for its gene therapy Zolgensma for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the leading genetic cause of death in infants, and priced the one-time treatment at a record $2.125 million. The... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – While people and other vertebrates are color blind in dim light, some deep-sea fish may possess keen color vision to thrive in the near total darkness of their extreme environment thanks to a unique genetic adaptation, scientists said on... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A fossil unearthed in northeastern China of a feathered dinosaur a bit bigger than a blue jay that possessed bat-like wings represents a remarkable but short-lived detour in the evolution of flight and the advent of birds, scientists sai... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A jawbone found in a cave on the Tibetan Plateau in China is providing surprising insights into Denisovans, the enigmatic extinct cousins to Neanderthals and our own species, including that they were pioneers at enduring high-altitude en... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top legislature will consider tougher rules on research involving human genes and embryos, the first such move since a Chinese scientist sparked controversy last year by announcing he had made the world’s first “gene-edited” babies.... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Scientists in southwest China’s Yunnan province have cloned what they called the “Sherlock Holmes of police dogs” in a program they hope will help cut training times and costs for police dogs, state media reported on Wednesday. The dog, na... More »
BURGDORF, Switzerland (Reuters) – Exposing cheese to round-the-clock music could give it more flavor and hip hop might be better than Mozart, Swiss researchers said on Thursday. Nine wheels of Emmental cheese weighing 10 kilos (22 pounds) each were placed in s... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Top scientists and ethicists from seven countries on Wednesday called for a global moratorium on gene editing of human eggs, sperm or embryos that would result in genetically-altered babies after a rogue Chinese researcher last year announc... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. health regulators said on Friday a third cancer-causing toxin was found in some blood pressure pills recalled by India’s Hetero Labs Ltd a day earlier, adding to a global recall of commonly used drugs to treat hypertension. The U.S. Food and D... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – No one would ever look at the huge and ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex as an underdog. But its newly discovered evolutionary great uncle certainly was. Scientists on Thursday said they have unearthed in central Utah fossils of a relatively s... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists are providing new evidence to answer the longstanding question about why zebras have stripes. It appears stripes make terrible landing strips, bamboozling the fierce blood-sucking flies that try to feast on zebras and carry de... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A small tropical reef fish was able to recognize itself in a mirror, scientists said on Thursday in a finding that raises provocative questions about assessing self-awareness and cognitive abilities in animals. The study involved experim... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Prior infection with dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that infects nearly 400 million people a year, could reduce the risk of contracting Zika nearly by half, U.S. and Brazilian researchers reported on Thursday. The finding, published in th... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists using sophisticated techniques to determine the age of bone fragments, teeth and artifacts unearthed in a Siberian cave have provided new insight into a mysterious extinct human species that may have been more advanced than pr... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – Dairy group Lactalis said on Friday it was recalling one of its infant formula brands as a precautionary move as the product was supplied by the same Spanish factory linked to several salmonella cases among babies in France. The company said ... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese scientists have made clones of a gene-edited macaque to aid research of circadian rhythm disorders that are linked to sleep problems, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday. It was the ... More »
(Reuters) – Eli Lilly and Co remains in the hunt for cancer drugs even after announcing an $8 billion purchase of Loxo Oncology this week, but it plans to remain on the sidelines when it comes to two of the hottest areas of drug development. Lilly Chief Execut... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French tech company Sigfox has developed a bite-size tracker that can be inserted into the horns of rhinos to help conservationists monitor and protect the endangered species. With the dramatic decline of animal species in the past century mo... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Stemline Therapeutics Inc’s Elzonris for the treatment of a rare blood disease in adults and children aged two years and above. This is the first approved treatment for the condition, blastic... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have unearthed fossils of a large meat-eating dinosaur that stalked northern Italy 198 million years ago that was remarkable both in life and in death. The researchers said on Wednesday Saltriovenator zanellai was about 25 fee... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A global coalition set up to fight disease epidemics is investing up to $8.4 million to develop a synthetic vaccine system that could be tailor-made to fight multiple pathogens such as flu, Ebola, Marburg and Rabies. The deal, between the Co... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The Chinese government on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to research activities for people involved in the editing of human genes, after a Chinese scientist said he had edited the genes of twin babies. Scientist He Jiankui said this wee... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fossils unearthed on a hillside in northwestern China are forcing scientists to rethink the history of a dinosaur lineage that produced the largest animals ever to walk the planet. Scientists on Tuesday announced the discovery of Lingwul... More »
(Reuters) – Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Friday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its treatment for a type of leukemia, the first targeted drug for patients with a specific genetic mutation. The company plans to launch the drug, Tibsovo, in t... More »
OSLO (Reuters) – Deep coral reefs in a “twilight zone” in the oceans differ sharply from those near the surface, dimming hopes that they can be a refuge for marine life fleeing threats such as climate change and pollution, scientists said on Thursday. Worldwid... More »
SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (Reuters) – Scientists in Crimea are poring over a mass of preserved animal bones dating back half a million years after workmen discovered a sprawling underground cave during the construction of a motorway. Work on the road has been tempora... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With its head and snout covered in bony armor shaped like cones and pyramids, a spiky tank-like dinosaur unearthed in southern Utah was not just another pretty face. Scientists on Thursday announced the discovery of fossils of a dinosaur... More »
