Tag Archives: ScienceAlert

Breast cancer patients who have been in remission for years or even decades may still need to be cautious about respiratory infections. Some common viruses may re-awaken a very small number of dormant breast cancer cells within our lungs, according to emerging research. “Dormant cancer cells are like the embers left in an abandoned campfire, and respiratory viruses are like …

According to a new study, humans can inhale more than 70,000 microplastic particles each day in an indoor environment – far more than previously thought. Worse still, most of them are small enough to penetrate deep into our lungs. Plastic is one of the defining environmental issues of our time, clogging up everything from our waterways to our bloodstreams. Tiny …

A build-up of meltwater under the Greenland ice sheet in 2014 resulted in a flood of such magnitude that it burst upward through tens of meters of solid ice, fracturing the surface and spilling water to the open air. It’s the first time scientists have documented this phenomenon in Greenland, and it gives us new information for understanding how Greenland …

Denied of sleep, we find it but impossible to keep our eyes open and our thoughts focused. A new study based on fruit flies may have pin-pointed the origins of this biological lullaby, and with it a deeper understanding of our need for rest on a cellular level. Researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK have identified our …

Roughly 76 million years ago, a herd of herbivorous dinosaurs left a trail of footprints that reveals different species may have walked together – and been stalked together, too. An international team of paleontologists discovered the trackways preserved in ironstone at Canada’s Dinosaur Provincial Park. This area is known for its remarkable fossil specimens, but these are the first good …

Imagine two people in their 70s. Both are active, live independently and enjoy life. But over the next 15 years, one of them develops two or three chronic illnesses – heart disease, diabetes, depression – while the other remains relatively healthy. What made the difference? According to our new research, diet may be a key part of the answer. In …

Gold remains perfectly solid when briefly heated beyond previously hypothesized limits, a new study reports, which may mean a complete reevaluation of how matter behaves under extreme conditions. The international team of scientists behind the study used intense, super-short laser blasts to push thin fragments of gold past a limit known as the entropy catastrophe; the point at which a …

We know that exercise has numerous health benefits, but does it matter how much you spread it out? Even only working out on the weekends may still reduce some people’s risk of early death, according to a new study. Researchers were interested in how people might build physical activity into busy schedules and decided to focus on those with diabetes, …

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease yet, but detecting it early can make a big difference. It gives scientists a better chance to study it in depth and gives patients and families more time to plan and get support. Now, US researchers have uncovered four telltale medical sequences that appear to predict the onset of the progressive neurological disorder. …

As plans for missions to Mars accelerate, so do questions about how the human body might cope. A return trip to the red planet would give more than enough time for someone to become pregnant and even give birth. But could a pregnancy be conceived and carried safely in space? And what would happen to a baby born far from …