Health Check newsletter: How our minds can affect our bodies

By Clare Wilson Hello, and welcome to this week’s Health Check, the weekly newsletter that gives you the health and fitness news you can really trust. To receive this free, weekly newsletter in your inbox, sign up here. Last week, I read a fascinating book called The Expectation Effect: How your mindset can transform your life. I … Read more

Rogue planets: How wandering bodies in interstellar space ended up on their own

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Joanna Barstow, Ernest Rutherford Fellow, The Open University We now know of almost 5,000 planets outside the solar system. If you were to picture what it would be like on one of these distant worlds, or exoplanets, your mental … Read more

Gut Microbes Can Cause Obesity, And We’re Getting Closer to Understanding How

Medical researchers have discovered a molecule linking the tiny creatures that call our guts home to levels of fat in our bodies. “We now have a molecular mechanism that provides a starting point to understand our microbiome as a link between our diet and our body composition,” explained Emory University biochemist Dean Jones.   Hints … Read more

Junk DNA Deforms Salamander Bodies

The Neuse River waterdog lives a sluggish existence, as if burdened by an invisible weight. This mottled brown salamander, about as long as a human hand, rarely strays far from its concealed burrows beneath rocks or logs in the rivers of North Carolina. It “hunts” by sitting still in the riverbed, waiting for an insect … Read more

We Finally Know The True Extent of Space Destroying Astronauts’ Red Blood Cells

The human body did not evolve to handle life in space, and it shows in our very blood. Since our species first started to spend extended periods of time beyond our planet, researchers have noticed a curious and consistent loss of red blood cells among astronauts.   The phenomenon is called ‘space anemia’, and until … Read more

See the Bizarre Fruiting Bodies of Slime Molds

When Barry Webb is crawling around on the forest floor with a flashlight, passersby understandably give him strange looks. After all, the U.K.-based photographer is looking for something others might struggle to see: slime mold growths that only stand around a tenth of an inch high. For scientists, classifying slime molds has proved to be … Read more

Evolution Gym Sculpts Novel Robot Bodies and Brains

Roboticists often copy nature, crafting humanoid robots for household chores, worm-style machines for crawling through tunnels and four-legged contraptions that look like cheetahs for running and leaping. But they usually design an animal-like robot body first and then train an AI to control it. In living creatures, though, the body and brain evolve together to … Read more

Scientists Say We Should Rethink Moons as Planets… And Reinstate Pluto

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has a very strict definition of the word “planet”. According to the definition – drafted, tweaked, and agreed upon in August 2006 – an astronomical body is officially a planet if it orbits the Sun, has sufficient mass to be spherical, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.   … Read more