Humans
- Tech
Helping MS patients get a grip on things
An Irish teen has invented a device that helps people with multiple sclerosis address the “clenched fist” symptom that afflicts most such patients.
- Environment
Uh oh! Baby fish prefer plastic to real food
Given a choice, baby fish will eat plastic microbeads instead of real food. That plastic stunts their growth and makes them easier prey for predators.
- Health & Medicine
Heat sickness
Scientists worry that increasing temperatures could combine with air pollution to up rates of illness and premature death — perhaps dramatically.
- Animals
Eating toxic algae makes plankton speedy swimmers
After slurping up harmful algae, copepods swim fast and straight — making them easy prey for hungry predators.
- Archaeology
Hunter-gatherers roamed Florida 14,500 years ago
Tools and bones from a submerged site in Florida show that Stone Age people lived in North America earlier than was once thought.
- Tech
Teen offers technology that could help brain surgeons
It can reproduce plastic models of the precise faulty vessels that need fixing. Now doctors can see them, hold them and practice on them long before they pick up a scalpel.
- Health & Medicine
Common plant could help fight Zika virus
A teen discovered that extracts from leaves of the San Francisco plant (Codiaeum variegatum) kill larvae of the mosquito that helps spread the Zika and dengue fever viruses.
- Health & Medicine
Bed bugs have favorite colors
Bed bugs change their color preferences as they get older. Adults like red and black, which may help the dark bugs avoid predators.
- Brain
Small region of brain recognizes facial expressions
Scientists identify the brain region responsible for recognizing facial expressions in others. It helps us know whether others are happy or sad.
- Tech
Control a computer with your tongue
Thousands of severely paralyzed people could venture into cyberspace with the use of this new tongue-controlled computer mouse. It was developed by a teen.
- Archaeology
Remains of long-ago child sacrifices found in Belize cave
Thousands of bones in Belize’s Midnight Terror Cave show that the Maya had a long tradition of human sacrifices. New data show that many had been children.
- Brain
A ‘cocktail’ in the brain can trigger sleep
A new study finds that a ‘cocktail’ of chemicals in the brain can directly cause mice to fall asleep or waken.
