Scientists Just Solved a Major Piece of the Opioid Puzzle
When it comes to tackling the opioid crisis, public health workers start with the drugs: fentanyl, morphine, heroin. But biochemists have a different focus: Not the opioids, but opioid receptors—the proteins the drugs latch onto within the body. These receptors embed themselves in the walls of cells throughout the brain and peripheral nervous system. There,…
To Understand the Universe, Physicists Are Building Their Own
Silke Weinfurtner is trying to build the universe from scratch. In a physics lab at the University of Nottingham—close to the Sherwood forest of legendary English outlaw Robin Hood—she and her colleagues will work with a huge superconducting coil magnet, 1 meter across. Inside, there’s a small pool of liquid, whose gentle ripples stand to…
DNA-Repairing Sunscreen: Legit or Not?
Having grown up in Tucson, Arizona, one of the sunniest cities in the world, I consider myself well-versed in the carcinogenic threat of UV exposure, the skin-sparing sanctity of shade, and the redeeming qualities of the sartorial atrocity that is the broad-brimmed hat. I am also a compulsive sunscreensplainer. "Well, actually, SPF 30 lotions block…
NASA Just Proved It Can Navigate Space Using Pulsars. Where to Now?
Half a century ago, astronomers observed their first pulsar: a dead, distant, ludicrously dense star that emitted pulses of radiation with remarkable regularity. So consistent was the object's signal that astronomers jokingly nicknamed it LGM-1, short for "little green men." It wasn't long before scientists detected more signals like LGM-1. That decreased the odds that…
NASA’s Jim Bridenstine Agrees Humans Are Responsible for Climate Change
It's no secret that the Trump administration has filled cabinet positions and other senior staff jobs with people who reject or ignore established climate science. On Monday, for example, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington that he’s “not going to get into the climate debate.” He also said…
With Some Structure, Stem Cells Might Still Stop Vision Loss
Getting older is supposed to give you perspective. But for one out of five people over the age of 65, it does the opposite. Macular degeneration is a common progressive eye condition, one that thins and breaks down a tissue behind the center of the retina. Without that tissue, the light-sensing cells it supports atrophy…
Researchers Restore Elusive Sixth Sense to Lost Limbs
The bionic hand closes slowly. Its slender metal digits whirr as they jitter into a loose fist, as though they are wrapping around an invisible baton. "OK, closed," says the test subject. The test subject is Amanda Kitts. In 2006, a Ford F350 hit her Mercedes sedan head-on. The collision rent the truck's tire from…
Catching up With Pepper, the Surprisingly Helpful Humanoid Robot
Listen, humans are great and all, but sometimes they’re horrible. That’s especially true if you’ve just spent 12 hours stuck in a flying aluminum tube with a few hundred of them. Now all you want to do is lock yourself in a hotel room, and for the love of all that is holy get away…
The FDA Approved its First Cannabis Drug. What Next?
Five years ago, I bought a safe for my son’s doctor to store drugs. It was blue, about three feet square, and weighed 965 pounds—like the Acme safes Wile E. Coyote used to try to drop on Road Runner. My family and I had evidence the drugs might cure our 11-year-old son of his relentless…
America's Fastest-Growing Urban Area Has a Water Problem
This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When Latter-day Saint migrants arrived in Utah in 1847, a verse in Isaiah served as consolation to them in the dessicated landscape: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Lately, the…