Revenge of the Weeds
Plant pests are evolving to outsmart common herbicides, costing farmers crops and money.
Opinion: Misleading Drug Trials
Amgen’s incomplete report on an early major trial of epoetin misled the medical community about the anemia drug’s risks and benefits—and helped make Amgen rich.
From Squeaks to Song
House mice sing melodies out of the range of human hearing, and the crooning is impacting research from evolutionary biology to neuroscience.
Burgers and Flies
Inspired by Darwin, Mohamed Noor has uncovered the molecular dance by which a single species becomes two.
News & Opinion
Covering the life sciences inside and out
Revenge of the Weeds
By Amy Coombs
Plant pests are evolving to outsmart common herbicides, costing farmers crops and money.
Live Slow, Die Old
By Ed Yong
Ancient bacteria living in deep-sea sediments are alive—but with metabolisms so slow that it’s hard to tell.
Mind Control of Robot Arm
By Jef Akst
Two paralyzed patients successfully manipulate a robotic arm just by thinking about how they would move their own limbs if they could.
Synchronized Clocks
By Megan Scudellari
Researchers identify the first circadian clock component conserved across all three domains of life.
The Nutshell
Daily News Roundup
HIV Prevention Debate
The suggested approval of a widely used antiretroviral drug to prevent HIV transmission in uninfected people sparks a debate about the possible dangers of such a move.
Misconduct on the Rise
Retractions of scientific studies due to plagiarism, falsification, and other instances of researchers behaving badly have skyrocketed in the past decade.
Wet Weather Stymies Insects
The rainiest April in 100 years is keeping many insects from flourishing in the United Kingdom.
A New International Student Visa?
New legislation is designed to help international graduate students in science and engineering to remain in the US after graduation.
Flowers Count Pollen
Plants carefully control how many sperm reach an ovule by shutting down the pollen-attracting process after sperm and egg fuse.
Current Issue
May 2012
SPRead Your Antibody Capabilities
Using surface plasmon resonance to improve antibody detection and characterization: four case studies
Data Diving
What lies untapped beneath the surface of published clinical trial analyses could rock the world of independent review.
Freezing Time
Targeting the briefest moment in chemistry may lead to an exceptionally strong new class of drugs.
Telomeres in Disease
Telomeres have been linked to numerous diseases over the years, but how exactly short telomeres cause diseases and how medicine can prevent telomere erosion are still up for debate.
Multimedia
Video, Slideshows, Infographics
Spot the Moth
It’s a well-known story: The peppered moth’s ancestral typica phenotype is white with dark speckles. In the decades following the…
Telomere Basics
Telomeres are repetitive, noncoding sequences that cap the ends of linear chromosomes. They consist of hexameric nucleotide sequences (TTAGGG in…
