Researchers have revealed that an ancient retrovirus, found in between 5 and 10 percent of the world’s population, is significantly associated with addiction. The study uncovered a connection between the retrovirus and a gene that could make individuals prone to a variety of addictive behaviors.
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A new study has used a VR-based treatment to help people overcome a fear of heights. The treatment is the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of a completely automated therapy guided by a computer-generated virtual therapist that responds to the patient's voice.
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A promising new cancer drug delivery system has successfully passed early human safety trials. The treatment delivers cancer drugs in heat-activated capsules to tumors in the liver and then uses a focused ultrasound beam to remotely trigger the targeted release of their drug payload.
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If you could sniff a planet, what would it smell like? According to an international team of scientists,if you could get a whiff of the planet Uranus, it would have the pungent odor of rotten eggs due to the presence of the noxious gas hydrogen sulfide.
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Scientists have long suspected that ticks feasted on the blood of dinosaurs. Preserved in a 99 million-year-old chunk of amber lies a hard tick grasping the feather of a dinosaur, suggesting that the parasitic insects did indeed harbor a penchant for prehistoric plasma.
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Studying how stem cells move in the body is a critical step to understanding cancer. Researchers have just provided a window into this process by building a machine that beams flatworms with x-rays that kill just enough stem cells to allow the others to move freely around while being tracked.
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Dickinsonia was a strange, segmented organism that lived 550 million years ago, but just what kind of lifeform it was has been a mystery. A new British study offers substantial evidence that the creature was indeed an animal, and previous beliefs about how it grew have been flipped on their head.
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The first written records of the number "0" were believed to be tied between a temple and a manuscript found in India, but now a team from Oxford has used carbon dating to crown the winner. The Bakhshali manuscript appears to be about 500 years older.
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Previous studies seemed to tell the tale of the last population of Neanderthals huddled in a Croatian cave 32,000 years ago as modern humans invaded Europe. But an Oxford team has analyzed bones using a new radiocarbon dating technique and found the Neanderthal remains were too old to fit the story.
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Although ticks are generally thought of as being the spreaders of illness, they may actually be able to help save peoples' lives. According to a new study, proteins found in tick saliva could be used to treat a potentially fatal heart disease.
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