Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) – designer drugs like ‘bath salts’ and synthetic opioids – are a scourge of our times. Law enforcement agencies that try to control them and medics who treat their consequences are locked in a cat-and-mouse game with clandestine chemists who quickly devise new compounds, typically by modifying known molecules, to skirt […]

Scientists have for the first time unambiguously observed ferroelectric water – a state in which the molecules’ dipoles become ordered and the material gains electric polarisation – in an atom-thin ice layer sandwiched between graphene sheets. In analogy to ferromagnetic materials, which exhibit a permanent magnetic moment, ferroelectric materials show spontaneous electric polarisation in the […]

Scientists in Canada have succeeded in setting off a chain of reactions in which fluorine atoms are passed between molecules tethered to a copper surface. The sequence can be repeated in alternating directions, mimicking the to-and-fro motions of a Newton’s cradle. The team of researchers at the University of Toronto, led by Nobel Laureate John […]

Scientists are inching closer to revealing the elusive mechanisms that tiny marine species activate to transform organic contaminants in water into less toxic chemicals. Cup sea water in your hands and you will be holding a bustling world of single-cell organisms – thousands of them. Much like creatures of an undersea metropolis, microscopic photosynthetic microbes […]

The era of space exploration brings with it a new risk: invasion. The peril comes not from little green men arriving on flying saucers but, rather, from microbiological contamination of Earth from extraterrestrial environments and vice versa. Writing in BioScience, Anthony Ricciardi, of McGill University, and colleagues describe the dangers posed by such organisms and […]

Northwestern University researchers have invented a new high-resolution camera that can see the unseen — including around corners and through scattering media, such as skin, fog or potentially even the human skull. Called synthetic wavelength holography, the new method works by indirectly scattering coherent light onto hidden objects, which then scatters again and travels back […]

Exercise increases the body’s own cannabis-like substances, which in turn helps reduce inflammation and could potentially help treat certain conditions such as arthritis, cancer and heart disease. In a new study, published in Gut Microbes, experts from the University of Nottingham found that exercise intervention in people with arthritis, did not just reduce their pain, but it […]

A diet involving short-term, severe calorie restriction was safe, feasible, and resulted in a decrease of blood glucose and growth factor concentration, reduction in peripheral blood immunosuppressive cells, and enhanced intratumor T-cell infiltration in cancer patients receiving standard-of-care therapy, according to the results of a clinical trial published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for […]

Mars explorers searching for signs of ancient life could be fooled by fossil-like specimens created by chemical processes, research suggests. Rocks on Mars may contain numerous types of non-biological deposits that look similar to the kinds of fossils likely to be found if the planet ever supported life, a study says. Telling these false fossils […]

Responding to the demands of an increasingly older population for options to accommodate aging in place, The University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs (CAPPA) is leading a cross-disciplinary research project to design and build micro-housing that can be embedded with technology that allows older people to live safely and […]