LONDON Tadpoles are contracting a new, highly infectious disease that may be threatening frog populations worldwide, British scientists have found. A parasitic disease caused by single-celled microbes known as “protists” was found in the livers of tadpole samp... More »
CHICAGO A political battle over the use of fetal tissue in medical research has been reinvigorated by the release of undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood officials. But the controversy comes just as interest in the use of fetal tissue is dwindling, s... More »
LONDON/GENEVA The world is on the verge of being able to protect humans against Ebola, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as a trial in Guinea found a vaccine to have been 100 percent effective. Initial results from the trial, which tested Merck... More »
WASHINGTON They look alike, act alike and long have been considered to be the same species. But, in the case of the golden jackals found across parts of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, it turns out that appearances can be deceiving. Scientists said o... More »
WASHINGTON If you feel like a human scream jolts the deep recesses of your brain, there’s a good reason for it. That is precisely what is happening, scientists say. Researchers who explored how the brain handles a scream said on Thursday the loud, high-pitched... More »
WASHINGTON Polar bears are the kings of the ice surface covering the top of the globe, but the ongoing loss of the Arctic sea ice on which they hunt seals is causing summer food deprivation that threatens these imposing white-furred predators. Some experts had... More »
UNITED NATIONS Some $3.4 billion in pledges were made at the United Nations on Friday to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea stamp out Ebola and begin rebuilding health systems and economies devastated by the worst outbreak on record of the deadly hemorrhagi... More »
WASHINGTON Global warming is shrinking the terrain where bumblebees live in North America and Europe, with these vital pollinators departing the southernmost and hottest parts of their ranges while failing to move north into cooler climes, scientists say. Thei... More »
WASHINGTON Giant pandas eat vegetables even though their bodies are better equipped to eat meat. So how do these black-and-white bears from the remote, misty mountains of central China survive on a diet almost exclusively of a low-nutrient food like bamboo? Sc... More »
LONDON Gene therapy for deafness is moving closer to reality, with new research on Wednesday showing the technique for fixing faulty DNA can improve responses in mice with genetic hearing loss. Separately, a clinical trial backed by Novartis is under way to he... More »
WASHINGTON It’s not every day a dinosaur gets named after you, so Canadian fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda celebrated in a unique way. “I got a new tattoo of my dinosaur recently to show it off. It is pretty exciting for me,” said Sloboda, who first spotted the fo... More »
WASHINGTON Woolly mammoths spent their lives enduring extreme Arctic conditions including frigid temperatures, an arid environment and the relentless cycle of dark winters and bright summers. An exhaustive genetic analysis of these bygone Ice Age giants and th... More »
WASHINGTON More than half a billion years ago, a peculiar little creature with rows of spikes on its back and delicate, feather-like front limbs to strain bits of food from the water thrived in the primordial seas of what is now China. Scientists on Monday ann... More »
WASHINGTON It was a creature so strange that experts literally could not make heads nor tails of it. But scientists said on Wednesday a new analysis of fossils of Hallucigenia, so named for its fantastical appearance, has given them for the first time a comple... More »
