As Concetta Antico took her pupils to the park for an art lesson, she would often question them about the many shades she saw flashing before her eyes. “I’d say, ‘Look at the light on the water – can you see the pink shimmering across that rock? Can you see the red on the edge of that leaf there?’” The students would all nod in agreement. It was only years later that she realised they were just too polite to tell the truth: the colours she saw so vividly were invisible to them.

Dimly lit by a far distant sun, a planet much larger than Earth may orbit in the vast outer reaches of the solar system, eluding our telescopes for more than 400 years. But its presence may leave telltale traces. And as new and more powerful probes join our space exploration armada, even the immensity of space may no longer afford Planet X a hiding place.

This report is dedicated to the 48,700 families who lose a loved one each year to antibiotic resistance

Natural genetic engineering allowed plants to move from water to land, according to a new study by an international group of scientists from Canada, China, France, Germany and Russia. “This is one of the most important events in the evolution of life on this planet—without which we as a species would not exist,” said University of Alberta genomicist and study co-investigator Gane Ka-Shu Wong.

Noise is not the same as noise – and even a quiet environment does not have the same effect as white noise. With a background of continuous white noise, hearing pure sounds becomes even more precise, as researchers from the University of Basel have shown in a study in Cell Reports. Their findings could be applied to the further development of cochlear implants.

Report claims 400,000 insect species face extinction amid heavy use of pesticides

A brain receptor believed to be linked to negative moods has been discovered in a part of the brain that contributes to pain. The paper is published in Science.

Since it landed in Gale Crater in 2012, the Curiosity rover has been studying the Martian surface beneath its wheels to learn more about the planet's history. But Curiosity also stuck its nose in the air for a big sniff to understand the Martian atmosphere.

The discovery of 800 bones could be the first evidence that humans hunted mammoths using traps.

In his new book, 'Lifespan,' celebrated scientist David Sinclair lays out exactly why we age—and why he thinks we don't have to

Scientists are finding that galaxies can move with each other across huge distances, and against the predictions of basic cosmological models. The reason why could change everything we think we know about the universe.

This is the second post from a series of three articles in which religious views of well-known scientists will be listed. The other two posts, you may guess, will celebrate believers and agnostics in the field of physics. You ready for this?

There's plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Elon Musk's grand vision of making humans a "multi-planetary species" by first building a metropolis on Mars, but the SpaceX founder has a knack for selling that vision with a particular poignancy.

Stanford Engineering Digital Magazine Article

Scientists computed a zoo of millions of alternate genetic polymer molecular structures, giving context for why biology encodes information how it does, and providing potential leads for new drugs and a guide to searches for extraterrestrial biology.

Fighting for the rights of the American consumer

Electric shocks are used to heat gluten-free bread from the inside, saving energy and time compared to conventional baking applying heat from the outside. A recent study from the Institute of Food Technology of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, was just published in Food and Bioprocess Technology. The researchers used a technology called Ohmic heating and adapted it to the production of gluten-free bread. First results show superior quality of the Ohmic bread while saving energy and time during the manufacturing process.

A story about cutting-edge medicine and the mysteries of identity.

Forget nuclear weapons, biological warfare, and the slew of other ways humanity could cause its own destruction for a moment. If you take into account only naturally occurring phenomena — supervolcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, and the like — researchers from the University of Oxford recently determined that the probability of our entire species going extinct in any given year is as high as one in 14,000.

New research has linked air pollution nanoparticles to brain cancer for the first time. The ultra-fine particles (UFPs) are produced by fuel burning, particularly in diesel vehicles, and higher exposures significantly increase people’s chances of getting the deadly cancer. Previous work has shown that nanoparticles can get into the brain and that they can carry carcinogenic chemicals.