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Seeking expert medical advice? The Internet seems to invite us to dispense altogether with consulting a doctor in person. When I Googled “expert advice” and medicine, I got 1,650,000 hits. “Expert advice” and “psychology” garnered 950,000. (Your results may differ.) Sites such as Kasamba (www.kasamba.com) and AllExperts (http://allexperts.com) offer expert counsel on just about any subject. We cannot avoid relying on expert opinion. We simply do not have the factual knowledge required to answer all of our questions....

Former NASA astronaut and U.S. senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth , has spent over a week in an Ohio hospital. Glenn, now 95, was admitted to the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio last week, the Associated Press reports. No information about his condition or diagnosis has been made public at this time. Communications officer Hank Wilson of Ohio State University’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs said that Glenn doesn’t necessarily have cancer, despite the hospital’s title....

A technique that combines gene therapy and magnets could someday provide a new tool for treating cardiovascular disease, which puts millions of lives at risk every year. Researchers have produced cells that carry magnetic nanoparticles linked to a therapeutic gene. With an external magnet to direct the cells, the researchers used them to repair damaged arteries in mice (ACS Nano 2015, DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b04996). Clogged arteries can cause heart attack or stroke. Blockages happen when the smooth single-cell lining, or endothelium, of an artery gets damaged from aging or disorders like high cholesterol, allowing plaque to start growing on the walls....

As COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations remain high across the country, our weakened public health system has never been more frustrating to front line clinicians. While it’s tempting to blame politicians, it’s also insufficient. To understand why this pandemic has had such deleterious effects, we must examine why the study of diagnosis and treatment of disease separated itself from the study of preventing disease—or, more succinctly, why medicine and public health are considered apart from each other....

WHAT ABOUT VEGETARIANS? While reading “In Search of the Optimal Brain Diet,” by Bret Stetka, I wondered if the studies cited considered vegetarian and vegan diets. As a vegetarian myself, I believe that I have become healthier by eliminating meat from my diet, but after reading this article, one might deduce that individuals who do not consume fish are more likely to experience mental illness at some point in life. If the optimal brain diet includes seafood, should vegetarians be concerned?...

Key members of the House of Representatives are calling for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to justify every grant it awards as being in the “national interest.” The proposal, which is included in a draft bill from the Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology that was obtained by Nature, would force the NSF to document how its basic-science grants benefit the country. The requirement is similar to one in a discussion draft circulated in April by committee chairman Lamar Smith (Republican, Texas)....

This story is a supplement to the feature “Could Our Own Proteins Be Used to Help Us Fight Cancer?” which was printed in the July 2008 issue of Scientific American. Primary Role: Keeping Order Heat shock proteins (HSPs) chaperone other cellular proteins, guarding them from going astray, folding improperly or misassembling while forming larger aggregates, as in the examples below. HSP40 delivers a newly formed amino acid chain (or one that has become unfolded) to HSP70, which grabs the molecule, helps it to fold into its proper functional form and then releases it....

Physicists have created one of the heaviest elements yet, an atom with 117 protons in its nucleus. This jumbo-sized atom sits on the outer reaches of the periodic table where bloated nuclei tend to become less and less stable. Element 117’s existence gives scientists hope, however, that they are getting closer to discovering a rumored “island of stability” where nuclei with so-called magic numbers of protons and neutrons become long-lived. Elements heavier than uranium (with 92 protons) are not usually found in nature, but they can be forced into existence in laboratories....

“For many kids, traditional education is neither relevant nor engaging,” wrote game designer Alan Gershenfeld in the February issue of Scientific American. “Digital games, on the other hand, captivate them.” The good news is that “even games that seem to have no redeeming value can deliver positive, lasting neuropsychological effects.” The better news, Gershenfeld argues, is that properly designed educational games, informed by research, have the potential to transform education. Game-based education isn’t there quite yet but the earliest contenders have begun to appear, and they range from modifications to existing games to tools for redesigning entire curricula....

A type of freshwater algae, known as “rock snot,” that infiltrates river bottoms and clumps on rocks is not an invasive species introduced into waterways by humans, a new study finds. The organism has actually been native to much of the world for thousands of years. Over the past decade, rock snot has been found in rivers in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand. New research suggests this type of algae — called Didymosphenia geminate, or didymo — is a native species, but the environmental conditions that trigger its visible growth in rivers were previously rare or absent....

Editor’s note: The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Photosynthesis – the ability to convert energy from the sun into fuel – first appeared on Earth in single-celled organisms, which eventually evolved into algae, then mosses, then ferns. Flowering plants, now such a familiar part of our landscape, didn’t evolve until the Jurassic period, after dinosaurs and mammals had already hit the scene....

Most of the ancient ruins that Moses Ittu, 67, a resident of Lelu Island in the Federated State of Micronesia, visited and played around during his childhood have since disappeared into the ocean. In the last few decades, residents of the island have increasingly used the ancient stones to build walls to shield their homes and livelihoods from pounding waves and creeping sea water. “The sea keeps on rising, and the people need to protect themselves,” Ittu told researchers who studied adaptation in response to coastal erosion in Micronesia for the Loss and Damage initiative at the U....

Late last week Obama administration officials used NBC News to send Moscow a cryptic threat: The U.S. government is “contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action” against Russia for allegedly interfering in the upcoming U.S. elections. Anonymous sources cited in the NBC story offered no details about what the U.S. might do, but said the White House has asked the CIA to cook up a “clandestine” cyber strategy “designed to harass and embarrass” Russian leadership, including Pres....

The same kind of DNA tinkering that produced the first FDA-approved gene therapy for cancer has shown hints of suppressing and even eradicating HIV infection in lab animals, scientists have reported. Although the study was small—it tested the genetically engineered “CAR” cells on only two monkeys as well as on cells growing in lab dishes—it suggests that after 30 years of fruitless efforts to come up with an AIDS vaccine there might be a wholly new way to get the immune system to fight HIV infection....

Giant molecules can be in two places at once, thanks to quantum physics. That’s something that scientists have long known is theoretically true based on a few facts: Every particle or group of particles in the universe is also a wave—even large particles, even bacteria, even human beings, even planets and stars. And waves occupy multiple places in space at once. So any chunk of matter can also occupy two places at once....

Like all slime molds, Physarum polycephalum has no brain or nervous system—yet it somehow “remembers” food sites for future reference. In a new paper, biophysicists Mirna Kramar and Karen Alim of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany, describe how the organism’s internal structure changes to encode past food locations. Although slime molds are extremely simple organisms—just a system of interlaced tubes—they can solve complex optimization problems such as finding the shortest path through a maze....

In 1797, English scientist Henry Cavendish measured the strength of gravity with a contraption made of lead spheres, wooden rods and wire. In the 21st century, scientists are doing something very similar with rather more sophisticated tools: atoms. Gravity might be an early subject in introductory physics classes, but that doesn’t mean scientists aren’t still trying to measure it with ever-increasing precision. Now, a group of physicists has done it using the effects of time dilation—the slowing of time caused by increased velocity or gravitational force—on atoms....

In a neuroscience laboratory in Boston, a mouse explores a plastic box, poking its nose into this corner and that. The behavior is normal, but the rodent bears a novel prosthesis: a thin glass optical fiber extends from its head and connects to a laser that can generate brief pulses of blue light. The fiber is directed at a small cluster of cells deep in the brain that manufacture the neurotransmitter dopamine....

John watches Mary, who is grasping a flower. John knows what Mary is doing–she is picking up the flower–and he also knows why she is doing it. Mary is smiling at John, and he guesses that she will give him the flower as a present. The simple scene lasts just moments, and John?s grasp of what is happening is nearly instantaneous. But how exactly does he understand Mary’s action, as well as her intention, so effortlessly?...

It’s hard to imagine anyone, no matter how brilliant, who doesn’t yearn to be even smarter. Thanks to recent advances in neural science, that wish may come true. Researchers are finding ways to rev up the human brain like never before. There would be just one question: Do we really want to inhabit that world? It may be too late to ask. Modern society has already embraced the basic idea of fine-tuning our intellects via artificial procedures—what might be termed “cosmetic” neurology....