Most of us have experienced that disappointing moment when we pull some delicious food out of the refrigerator — strawberries, for instance — and notice that it is sporting fuzzy mold. While it isn’t...
Most of us know from our high school health classes that we should avoid smoking because it can cause lung cancer. Many students were presented with disturbing visuals that compare healthy lungs with a...
Scientists are constantly uncovering more information about human genes, their sequences, their mutations and the problems that those mutations can cause. As the number of discoveries increases, so do...
Vampire bats have unique abilities when it comes to getting the nutrients they need from their food. And yes, that food predominantly consists of blood. You may never have questioned the ability of an...
There are many reasons to be concerned about water. Cape Town, a port city in South Africa, is suffering from horrible drought and, despite every attempt to conserve water, is set to turn off taps in May....
Your neck and jaw area has started to hurt and swell, so you go to the doctor’s office to find out what’s wrong. After a preliminary series of tests, they find none of the more common diseases that...
What’s your go-to home remedy when you get a cold? Most people have a technique for supposedly boosting their immune system, whether it’s eating yogurt with probiotics, drinking tall glasses of...
Scientists across the globe are studying coral reefs and considering the possibility of genetic modification in order to save these natural treasures from destruction by pollution and climate change. Coral...
On Sept. 15, 2017 at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time, the Cassini spacecraft disintegrated on a final dive into Saturn’s atmosphere, completing an almost 20-year mission of probing and photographing the planet....
As tensions in the U.S. around climate change continue to rise, new information has emerged about how climate change will affect the mercury levels contained in sea life.
Mercury is a metal element...
Scientists recently discovered that rats have their own equivalent of laughter, which is inaudible to humans but still released when humans tickle them. Researcher Shimpei Ishiyama recently authored a...
Scientists are developing new ways to treat viruses like Zika with the use of innovative technologies. In a new research experiment, scientists released mosquitoes carrying a specific strain of bacteria...
In the past several years, scientists and doctors have been exploring ways to treat cancer with immunotherapy, a treatment plan that uses a person’s existing immune system capacities to fight cancerous...
The Zika virus continues to dominate the news cycle as new information emerges about its effects, its transmission and attempt to find a cure.
Zika is a virus transmitted through infected mosquitoes...
Scientists discovered that what killed the dinosaurs was a combination of gradual die-off and an asteroid hitting Earth. The picture that people have of dinosaurs, their lives and their extinction...
Scientists have found that bacteria might be the key to degrading plastics which would otherwise sit in landfills or the ocean for hundreds of years. Plastic is notorious for being very hard to degrade...
An experimental procedure in the medical field may allow anybody to receive a kidney transplant from any other person. Usually, the waiting list for an organ transplant consists of thousands of people....
On Sep. 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. scientists made a ground-breaking discovery when they detected gravitational waves created by the collision of black holes over a billion light-years away. The detection of...
Scientists in Britain are waiting for consent from government officials to carry out a procedure that will allow a baby to be born with genetic material from three people. Though this genetic manipulation...
This month marks the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s presentation of his general theory of relativity. The formulation of the theory began with a realization that Einstein had in 1907: people...
Scientists have discovered a way to effectively change the genes of an organism so that the organism passes on certain genes to its offspring. Although genetic engineering is nothing new, modified insects,...
There are few places in the world that are as beautiful as New England in the fall. Wellesley is particularly gorgeous, with its plethora of trees and the shimmering lake. This is, of course, because...
Research reopens question of life on other planets
A confirmation of liquid water on Mars has rekindled the research on the Red Planet as a place with the possibility of life. Though scientists have...
Astronomers at several institutions have been watching as two black holes spiral toward each other. A collision of the two black holes, described as “supermassive” by researchers at Caltech...
Imagine a plane with no pilot flying you across the country, or a car with no driver getting you to your destination. These are realistic possibilities for the near future.
The idea of pilotless planes...
3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, makes three-dimensional objects with machines that are controlled by specialized computer programs. Scientists have used the technology of 3-D printing...
Many faculty members juggle teaching responsibilities with other careers
Professors from the learning environment, many Wellesley professors juggle their teaching careers with other pursuits, from editing...
According to the research of scientists in both the United States and China, the Earth has more happening beneath its surface than previously expected. Researchers and experts in geoscience have previously...
It turns out that you can unboil an egg. Based on a method, developed at the University of California, Irvine, one can reverse the effect boiling has on egg whites. After boiling the eggs for 20 minutes...
If a dog is man’s best friend, the Cyber-Enhanced Working Dog harness could bring canines and humans closer than ever before. Created by researchers at North Carolina State University, the Cyber-Enhanced...
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered a way to convert human skin cells directly to the specific type of neuron that is affected by Huntington’s disease...
An average human being is made up of about 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs of genetic material and an average flu virus is made up of about 14,000 nucleotides. But the viroid, the newly interpreted viral...
A new Ebola vaccine was tested on humans after a successful trial on monkeys, the results of which were published in the Nature Medicine journal last week.
The vaccine, developed by the National Institutes...
