A new survey has documented that black Americans are systematically under-treated for pain relative to white Americans, and the authors allege it is due to the over-prescription and over-use of pain medications among white patients and the under-prescription of pain medications for black patients. Statistics show that black patients are under-treated for pain not only relative to white patients, but relative to World Health Organization guidelines. 

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that nanoscale electronic components can be made from single DNA molecules.

For two decades, the search has been on to replace the silicon chip in order to keep the hope of Moore's Law alive.  To find a solution to this challenge, the group turned to DNA, whose predictability, diversity and programmability make it a leading candidate for the design of functional electronic devices using single molecules.

When "The Polar Express" film came out, it was creepy to a lot of people. It was a cartoon with faces modeled after the real actors, but still a digital creation. The same response happens when people are around a robot that veers closer to being human in appearance.

It's called The Uncanny Valley - robots have an upward curve of fascination and then suddenly plummet into a valley of repulsion. But it's getting uncanny as we get more comfortable with robots, according to a new study. So much so that touching a robot's intimate areas elicited physiological arousal in humans.

Two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, a series of Siberian volcanoes erupted and sent the Earth into the greatest mass extinction of all time. Billions of tons of carbon were propelled into the atmosphere, radically altering the Earth's climate. Yet, some animals thrived in the aftermath and scientists now know why. In a new study published in Scientific Reports, paleontologists from The Field Museum and their collaborators demonstrate that some ancient mammal relatives, known as therapsids, were suited to the drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies. When combined with results from survivorship models, this observation leads the team to suggest that these animals bred at younger ages than their predecessors.

Engineers have created a new material with an unusual chemical structure that makes it incredibly hard and yet elastic.

The material can withstand heavy impacts without deforming - even when pushed beyond its elastic limits, it doesn't fracture, instead retaining most of its original strength. That makes it potentially useful in a variety of applications from drill bits to body armor for soldiers to meteor-resistant casings for satellites.

In the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from USC; the University of California, San Diego; and Caltech announced the creation of the material, which was produced by heating a powdered iron composite up to exactly 630 degrees Centigrade (1166 degrees Faherenheit) and then rapidly cooling it.

MADISON, Wis. -- A fruit called the noni -- now hyped for a vast array of unproven health benefits -- is distinctly unhealthy for the fruit fly, which has fascinated geneticists for a century. For the species of Drosophila that lives in labs around the world, noni signifies extermination with extreme prejudice: A fly will die if it eats yeast growing on noni.

And yet when collectors swung nets and baited traps with rotting banana on a small island between Madagascar and Africa, they found a close relative, Drosophila yakuba, that merrily gobbles yeast growing on these forbidden fruits.