Scientists have helped provide a way to better understand how to enable drugs to enter the brain and how cancer cells make it past the blood brain barrier.

Researchers have developed a medicated skin patch that can turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat locally while raising the body’s metabolism. The patch could be used to burn off pockets of unwanted fat and treat metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes.

University of Washington researchers have published the first analysis looking at how vulnerable the world's freshwater and marine fishes are to climate change. Their paper, appearing online Sept. 11 in Nature Climate Change, used physiological data to predict how nearly 3,000 fish species living in oceans and rivers will respond to warming water temperatures in different regions.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and collaborators discovered a new kind of glycan (sugar chain) that survives even in a 4 million-year-old animal fossil from Kenya, under conditions where ancient DNA does not. While ancient hominin fossils are not yet available for glycan analysis, this proof-of-concept study, published September 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sets the stage for unprecedented explorations of human origins and diet.

A team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has demonstrated a groundbreaking new method of gene synthesis – a vital research tool with real-world applications in everything from growing transplantable organs to developing treatments for cancer.

A team of biologists has found an unexpected source for the brain’s development, a finding that offers new insights into the building of the nervous system.

New research, led by the University of Southampton and involving a team of international scientists, suggests that an extreme global warming event 56 million years ago was driven by massive CO2 emissions from volcanoes, during the formation of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Southern Research-developed stabilized telescopes with sensitive, high-speed, visible-light and infrared cameras flew aboard NASA WB-57F research aircraft to gather data during the total solar eclipse.

The Dragonfly mission concept would use an instrumented, radioisotope-powered, dual-quadcopter to explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan, one of our solar system’s “ocean worlds.”

In the megacities that are home to nearly 10 percent of the world’s 7.5 billion people, trees provide each city with more than $500 million each year in services that make urban environments cleaner, more affordable and more pleasant places to live.

In an experiment designed to mimic the conditions deep inside the icy giant planets of our solar system, scientists were able to observe “diamond rain” for the first time as it formed in high-pressure conditions. Extremely high pressure squeezes hydrogen and carbon found in the interior of these planets to form solid diamonds that sink slowly down further into the interior.

Behavior experiments are useful tools to study brain function. Standard experiments to investigate behavior in popular lab animals such as fish, flies or mice however only incompletely mimic natural conditions. The understanding of behavior and brain function is thus limited. Virtual Reality (VR) helps in generating a more natural experimental environment but requires immobilization of the animal, disrupting sensorimotor experience and causing altered neuronal and behavioral responses. Researchers at the University of Freiburg, and the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL), a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, in collaboration with groups at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) and the MPI for Ornithology in Konstanz, have now developed a VR system for freely moving animals – FreemoVR – to overcome most of these limitations. Their findings are now published in Nature Methods.

A new study from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis validates that the central core of the East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if the West Antarctic ice sheet melts.

Sunbathers may want to avoid midnight snacks before catching some rays.

Biologists conducted the first large-scale experiment on a Superfund site using poplar trees fortified with a probiotic — or natural microbe — to clean up groundwater contaminated with trichloroethylene, or TCE.

UCLA researchers have discovered a new way to activate the stem cells in the hair follicle to make hair grow. The research, led by scientists Heather Christofk and William Lowry, may lead to new drugs that could promote hair growth for people with baldness or alopecia, which is hair loss associated with such factors as hormonal imbalance, stress, aging or chemotherapy treatment.

A new study shows that Instagram photos can be examined by a computer to successfully detect depressed people. The computer results are more reliable (70%) than the diagnostic success rate (42%) of general-practice doctors. The approach promises a new method for early screening of mental health problems through social media.

Scientists have created the most accurate map of the structure of dark matter in the Universe, supporting the theory that dark energy and dark matter make up most of the Universe.

A new analysis of genome sequences from the ancient Minoans and Mycenaeans by HHMI investigator and colleagues offers insight into the origins of these Bronze Age cultures.

Human-caused habitat loss looms as the greatest threat to some North American breeding birds over the next few decades. The problem will be most severe on their wintering grounds, according to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology.