A quasiparticle called the exciton is responsible for the transfer of energy within devices, such as solar cells, LEDs, and semiconductor circuits, and has been understood for decades, but exciton movement within materials has never been directly observed. An exciton, which travels through matter ...

Invasive fungal infections kill about 1.5 million people in 3 million cases each year, more than are killed by malaria or tuberculosis. That half of the patients who enter a hospital with an invasive fungal infection in their blood die anyway makes it a medical crisis that isn't going away.   ...

Since the Blood Moon - whatever that is, it sounds Biblical - was last night, and it spells the beginning of our doom, according to a guy trying to sell some books, it's time to start prepping for the days of ultimate holy war. That means no more Southern blots and particle colliders, it's back ...

A small icy object within the rings of Saturn may be a new moon, according to interpretation of images taken with Cassini's narrow angle camera on April 15, 2013 which show disturbances at the very edge of Saturn's A ring -- the outermost of the planet's large, bright rings. One of these disturbances ...

The world could be less than 40 years away from a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments, according to a senior science advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development. It's not Paul Ehrlich/John Holdren Doomsday Prophet levels of gloom, but it's a ...

Researchers have reported a big improvement in the distance of wireless power.   Their "Dipole Coil Resonant System (DCRS) boosts the extended range of inductive power transfer up to 5 meters between transmitter and receiver coils. It's not quite the rumors about Nikola Tesla but ...

There's a disturbing, though funny to outsiders, trend sweeping green conscious corporations on the coasts of the United States - flurries of emails between indignant employees talking about how long their cars have been plugged in.Though subsidies and public relations campaigns for electric cars ...

Last winter's curvy jet stream pattern brought mild temperatures to western North America and harsh cold to the East and it may have seemed exceptional in the era of 24-hour news, but it's been happening that way for about 4,000 years, according to a new study.  It is not new for scientists ...

Children with Tourette syndrome may unconsciously train their brain to more effectively control their tics.How so? A recent study found that teenagers diagnosed with  Tourette syndrome   were slower than typical peers when asked to perform a task that involved them simply moving ...

Researchers have discovered little-known cave insects, four distinct but related species in the genus Neotrogla, with rather novel sex lives - the first example of an animal with sex-reversed genitalia.Not sex roles, like the alphabet of letters we get in western culture, actual sex organ reversal ...

Food-poisoning outbreaks linked to Escherichia coli are often associated with tainted meat products but up to 30% of these are caused by people eating contaminated vegetables, and that has risen with the popularity of the organic process, as was seen in the 2011 outbreak in Europe that caused 53 ...

Antibiotics improve growth in children at risk of undernourishment in low and middle income countries, according to a literature review in the British Medical Journal. Malnutrition in early childhood, reflected in poor growth, is the cause of nearly half of all mortality worldwide in children ...

Sid Salter, director of public affairs at Mississippi State University, writes in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that labels have gone too far.  He is worried about a bill from Democratic State Senator Bill Monning, which would put a warning label on soft drinks and other sugary beverages. A Democrat ...

Though measles outbreaks remain somewhat under control, they aren't going down. Deaths have held steady at around 150,000 per year since 2007.The developing world can get something of a pass for not being able to contain measles. In anti-science hotbeds like the coasts in America and some countries ...

Nutrionists writing in Ageing Research Reviews have coined a new syndrome called "osteosarcopenic obesity" - they say they have linked the deterioration of bone density and muscle mass with obesity. it explains how many obese individuals experience a triad of problems that place them at a higher ...

A larger waist circumference is associated with higher risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, according to a paper by American Cancer Society researchers in Cancer Causes, and Control which disputes previous findings that body shape itself is an independent risk factor for breast cancer.  ...

Kids know it is wrong to steal stuff - they also seem to know it's wrong to steal an idea. They just discover it a little later.University of Washington psychologist Kristina Olson and colleagues discovered that preschoolers often don't view a copycat negatively but by the age of 5 or 6, they ...

Because the majority of prescriptions for depression, are given to women, men don't get a lot of concern, but depression can hit young fathers hard and the symptoms can increase dramatically during the formative years of children. Depressive symptoms increased on average by 68 percent over the ...

Should you get a pet? If so, a dog or a cat?  For families of children with autism, the decision may have gotten a little easier. A University of Missouri nurse has studied dog ownership decisions in families of children with autism and found, regardless of whether they owned dogs, the parents ...

Kansas Republican Mike Pompeo, a Congressman from Wichita, is behind a bill to create a national standard for mandatory for review of GMO foods by the FDA, called the"Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act."What? Have Republicans gone over to the anti-science dark side too? No, Pompeo sides with science ...

A statistical analysis determines that in India’s agriculture sector following the liberalization of the nation’s economy during the 1990s,  suicides among small, debt-ridden farmers - who are clinging to tiny holdings, less than one hectare - and are trying to grow cash crops, such as ...

If you were a blonde girl or boy captured in a raid a few hundred years ago, you were an exotic luxury item so valuable it was worthwhile to transport you to far-away markets in Asia.Slave-trading was so common the routes stretched from Finland, the Russian Karelia and the Baltic Countries  ...

Earth Day is fast approaching and, let's face it, if you celebrate Earth Day you probably hate science. And you really hate chemists. But there has never been a reason for it, it is simply modern chemophobia. If you ask an environmentalist if they should use a chemical solvent or baking soda ...

Home can sometimes literally be in the kitchen.A Puerto Rican community - in Connecticut of all places - creates cuisine authentic it has caught the attention of scientists. Like immigrants throughout history who ventured forth with their favorite plants in tow, the Puerto Ricans of Hartford maintain ...