[ad_1] In female mammals, genes on one copy of the X chromosome are usually inactivated vchal/Shutterstock Female mammals have a higher risk of developing autoimmune conditions such as lupus because extra copies of genes that are supposed to be permanently turned off get reactivated as they grow older, a study of mice suggests. The findings […]

[ad_1] An MRI scan could improve the accuracy of prostate cancer screening skynesher/Getty Images There is both good news and bad news about prostate cancer screening. First, the bad news: the blood test involved, which measures a compound called prostate-specific antigen (PSA), is too inaccurate. As a result, some men end up having cancer treatments […]

[ad_1] Dairy cows Shutterstock / Yuangeng Zhang A person in the US has contracted bird flu from infected dairy cows in Texas. This is the first confirmed case of a subtype of the virus, named H5N1, transmitting between a human and another mammal. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the news […]

[ad_1] Predicting when solids will melt is more difficult than you might think r.classen/Shutterstock Physicists may finally have an answer for a seemingly simple question that has remained unanswered for about a century: when does a substance melt? Kostya Trachenko at Queen Mary University of London found it mysterious that “in this age of scientific […]

[ad_1] Some brands of bamboo toilet paper contain very little bamboo Zolga_F/Getty Images Eco-friendly toilet paper brands are selling bamboo loo roll containing as little as 3 per cent bamboo, according to UK consumer group Which?. Unlike the trees that traditionally go into toilet paper, bamboo is a type of grass that can grow quickly […]

[ad_1] An artist’s impression of Europa Clipper near the moon it is named after NASA An instrument on a NASA spacecraft due to blast off to Europa later this year may be able to directly detect cellular material ejected from the icy moon of Jupiter, raising the prospects for finding life. Europa has garnered scientific […]

[ad_1] An artistic reconstruction of Pebanista yacuruna in the murky waters of the Peruvian proto-Amazon Jaime Bran The Amazon basin was once home to freshwater dolphins that grew up to 3.5 metres long – making them the largest river dolphins known to science. Researchers made the surprise discovery during a 2018 expedition in Peru, says […]

[ad_1] Objects seen through a glare-free material are clear, while conventional anti-glare film (right) blurs the view Mu Wang et al./Nanjing University Glare-free windows could be made from a material studded with billions of tiny metal patches. This makes a one-way window that is matte – it looks opaque, reflecting barely 1 per cent of […]

[ad_1] Faeces reveals the bacteria in our gut, but we don’t yet know which are optimal STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/Science Photo Library/Alamy The science of our gut microbiome is often painted as one of the hottest new areas of medicine, but there have also been claims that the research is being overhyped. The latest aspect of this […]

[ad_1] How did Mars acquire its moons? NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M University The mystery of where Mars’s two moons came from may finally be solved. If Phobos and Deimos were formed when an icy object smashed into Mars, it could explain their contradictory properties, which have long baffled researchers. Measurements of the geological makeup […]