A promising anti-cancer therapy - suppression of the protein mammalian target Of Rapamycin  (mTOR) - has failed to achieve hoped-for success in killing tumor cells.

mTOR plays an important role in regulating how cells process molecular signals from their environment, and it is observed as strongly activated in many solid cancers. Drug-induced suppression of mTOR has until now shown success in causing the death of cancer cells in the outer layers of cancerous tumors, but has been disappointing in clinical trials in dealing with the core of those tumors.  

Interacting with a therapeutic robot companion made people with mid- to late-stage dementia less anxious and also had a positive influence on their quality of life, according to a pilot study

PARO, a robotic harp seal, was used to investigate the effect of interacting with an artificial companion compared with participation in a reading group. PARO is fitted with artificial intelligence software and tactile sensors that allow it to respond to touch and sound. It can show emotions such as surprise, happiness and anger, can learn its own name and learns to respond to words that its owner uses frequently.

How lifeless materials became organic molecules that are the bricks of animals and plants is a science question for the ages.

The world's first known odd couple: 250 million years ago, a mammal forerunner and an amphibian shared a burrow in South Africa.

Scientists scanning a 250 million-year-old fossilized burrow from the Karoo Basin of South Africa have discovered that two unrelated vertebrate animals nestled together and were fossilized after being trapped by a flash flood event. Facing harsh climatic conditions subsequent to the Permo-Triassic (P-T) mass extinction, the amphibian Broomistega and the mammal forerunner Thrinaxodon cohabited in a burrow.

As expected, a coalition of subscription-based journal publishers has responded to the White House’s mandate that federal agencies develop systems to make the research they fund available to public by offering to implement the system themselves.

A 'Super Moon' - a new or full moon at 90% of its closest perigee - hasn't happened since...well, last year. But it's still cause for concern, according to people who need things to be concerned about.

It's mind over mechanics. A group in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering have developed a new noninvasive system that allows people to control a flying robot using only their mind.

It sounds fun but it also has the potential to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases. 

Five subjects (three female and two male) who took part in the study were each able to successfully control the four-blade flying robot, also known as a quadcopter, quickly and accurately for a sustained amount of time.

A thick paper by the ATLAS collaboration has been published by the Cornell Arxiv today. It is going to become a reference to all ATLAS analyses searching for new phenomena at high energy, or studies of boosted top quarks or vector bosons; and a good example of the new techniques that make sense of the energy distribution inside high-momentum jets.

It was no less than Aristotle himself who wondered “Why are the stones on the seashore which are called pebbles round, when they are originally made from long stones and shells?” In typical Aristotlean fashion, he not only asked the question, but went on to provide a very plausible explanation (see appendix below) – one which lay untested for more than 2000 years. It now been verified in practice by professor Douglas Durian and his Durian Research Group at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US.