Surprising Science

Athletics isn’t all brawn: the professional athlete’s brain has been trained to be more efficient enabling them to make quick decisions in a rapidly changing environment.

Canadians live not only longer, but healthier lives than their American counterparts, according to a study in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Population Health Metrics. Canadians and Americans […]

There is no single part of the human brain that gives it advanced language capabilities. Rather, humans rely on multiple parts of the brain to extract meaning from sentences.

Some believe we should move a system where health insurers pay a fixed, up-front cost for each particular health problem—and let the hospital and caregivers use the money as they see fit.

“What’s the difference between a frog, a chicken, a mouse and a human? Not as much as you’d think, according to an analysis of the first sequenced amphibian genome.”

A recent study of multiple sclerosis has found no genetic dissimilarities between identical twins who have and don’t have the disease.

Two teams of researchers have confirmed that an asteroid circling the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter has water ice and organic compounds.

Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic” investigates the long-term outcomes of patients treated with psychiatric drugs. Could meds be doing more harm than good?

Despite the claims of advertisers, most orange juice is neither fresh nor natural. Alissa Hamilton writes that the history of processed orange juice is a study in deceptive marketing.

New research indicates that New World ants, who fastidiously cultivate crops in their underground lairs for food, have updated the crops they grow over time.

“Modern eco-foodies are full of good intentions,” writes Robert Paarlberg. But “the hope that we can help others by changing our shopping and eating habits is being wildly oversold to Western consumers.”

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini argue that new genetic discoveries reveal a flaw in Darwin’s fundamental argument of evolution by natural selection.

Researchers have discovered that mammals may have the biochemical machinery to produce their own morphine.

Genetic scientists are discovering hundreds of genes involved in human disorders by looking at the DNA of distantly-related species.

People who are motivated by rewards tend to be the ones who win at games—even when the reward has been removed.

For much of the past century, the realm of alien conspiracy theories has been inhabited primarily by academics and recluses, both widely dismissed as crackpots. Despite the billions of dollars […]

Hoarders have “a sense of intense responsibility for objects and an unwillingness to waste them,” says Randy Frost. They also have an ability to find beauty in things that other people might not appreciate.

Scientists have gotten a better understanding of the molecular mechanism by which humans sense temperature. The findings could lead to new therapies for acute or chronic pain.

The Army is seeking proposals for a sophisticated human scent detection system that could “uniquely identify an individual,” at a geographical distance, or after several hours or even days.

Politicians and military brass warn that America’s poor diets and lack of exercise have now become a danger to homeland security. Daniel Engber says this argument is “hogwash.”

I would like to thank everyone who has been so enthusiastic about being part of SCI-FI Science: Physics of the Impossible on the Science Channel. We have been floored by […]

A Croatian girl recently came out of a coma having forgotten her native tongue but remembering German, her second language, perfectly fine.

Harper’s magazine tries to make sense of the many baffling studies conducted on the effects of cell phone radiation on the brain.

Researchers doing a statistical analysis of dinosaur fossils have discovered that the entire western interior of the United States was populated by a single community of dinosaurs.

Many are beginning to acknowledge that disease-specific health campaigns in Third World countries can only work if they also strengthen the health systems in those nations.

When undersea eruptions destroy life around hydrothermal vents—the intersections of tectonic plates—new species travel from as far as 200 miles away to repopulate the area.

Subjects who dreamed about a virtual reality maze that they had been in a few hours earlier were quicker to get out of it the second time they were tested.

Conservative Christians used their lobbying muscle to create a gaping loophole in health care reform’s individual mandate, reports Sarah Posner in the American Prospect. Members of so-called Health Care Sharing […]

New research finds that the movements of our bodies “influence the recollection of emotional memories, as well as the speed with which they are recalled.”

There is a lot of evidence suggesting life exists on Mars, says astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch. “It’s actually more scientifically outrageous to think that Mars is and always has been sterile.”