Bits of a protein that builds up in Parkinson’s disease trigger the immune system, causing it to tag them as foreign invaders. In a blood test, immune cells called T cells became activated when exposed to the protein in about 40 percent of Parkinson’s patients in a new study. This autoimmune response may contribute to […]

The Great American Eclipse on August 21 will be much more than a spectacle. As the moon passes in front of the sun, scientists will be doing some serious work. A fleet of telescopes, spectrometers and polarizers will turn skyward to look directly at the parts of our nearest star that are usually invisible. But […]

Nighttime may be snow-time on Mars. Low evening temperatures could cool clouds and trigger turbulent winds that fuel fast-falling snowstorms on the Red Planet, new simulations suggest. This process, reported August 21 in Nature Geoscience, may account for surprising observations of snowfall by one of NASA’s Martian landers. “Clouds and snowfall have emerged in recent […]

Life’s great diversity has revealed itself in more than 600 pieces of floating tsunami debris that have landed on the western coast of North America. Of nearly 300 living animal and protist species documented on the debris, which crossed the Pacific Ocean following Japan’s destructive 2011 tsunami, researchers analyzed in detail 237 species, which include […]

Deblina Sarkar makes little machines, for which she has big dreams. The machines are so little, in fact, that they can humbly inhabit living cells. And her dreams are so big, they may one day save your mind.Sarkar is a nanotechnologist and assistant professor at MIT. She develops ultratiny electronic devices, some smaller than a […]

Brains are like sponges, slurping up new information. But sponges may also be a little bit like brains. Sponges, which are humans’ very distant evolutionary relatives, don’t have nervous systems. But a detailed analysis of sponge cells turns up what might just be an echo of our own brains: cells called neuroids that crawl around […]

And then there were three. Just three races in the 2021 Formula 1 world championship remain, and it looks like Red Bull's Max Verstappen is in the driver's seat to secure his first world driver's championship.But hot on his tail is still Lewis Hamilton, who took home the victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix to […]

Grizzlies star Ja Morant has earned a lot of attention early on in the 2021-22 season, and rightfully so. The 22-year-old has taken a monster leap from Year 2 to Year 3, looking like a player who is aiming higher than just a Most Improved Player of the Year award or the first All-Star bid […]

The Week 12 College Football Playoff rankings were easily adjustable for the selection committee. But they also set up to be a potentially chaotic final weekend of football. Only one top-10 team in the most recent set of rankings lost on Saturday. That would be Oklahoma, a team the committee clearly didn't value in the […]