Scientists say they've found a reason why treatment for chronic hepatitis C infection works better for whites than for African-Americans. It's a tiny variation in a gene. ...more

August 17, 2009

For the first time U.S. scientists matched a meteorite found on Earth with a specific asteroid that became a fireball plunging through the sky. It gives them a glimpse into the past when planets formed and an idea how to avoid a future asteroid Armageddon. ...more

March 26, 2009

Based on its ability to literally destroy a person's large intestine and resist attempts to treat it, the bacterium Clostridium difficile has been dubbed a "superbug." For nearly two decades researchers and clinicians had been trying with little success to tame C-diff as it spreads around the globe causing severe, life-threatening intestinal illness. ...more

March 4, 2009

Fossils from northeastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds. Titanoboa cerrejonensis, which acted like an anaconda, breaks the snake length record by about 11 feet, said paleontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto Missisauga. ...more

February 5, 2009

Never mind the 40-foot snake that menaced Jennifer Lopez in the 1997 movie "Anaconda." Not even Hollywood could match a new discovery from the ancient world. ...more

February 4, 2009

For the first time, researchers have decoded all the genes of a person with cancer and found a set of mutations that may have caused the disease or aided its progression. ...more

November 6, 2008

Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape. It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers. ...more

October 22, 2008

Cells taken from men's testicles seem as versatile as the stem cells derived from embryos, researchers reported Wednesday in what may be yet another new approach in a burgeoning scientific field. ...more

October 9, 2008

If they new how to trigger cell death, doctors would have a powerful tool for fighting cancer. On the other hand, if they knew how to block cell death, they would have an equally powerful tool with which to battle the ravages of aging. ...more

September 24, 2008

A new study finds that the strongest hurricanes and typhoons have become even stronger over the past 21/2 decades, adding grist to the contentious debate over whether global warming has made storms more destructive. ...more

September 4, 2008