As nonconventional medical treatments become increasingly mainstream, we take a look at the science behind some of the most popular.

Metagenomic sequencing can help detect unknown pathogens, but its widespread use faces challenges.

Nucleic acid aptamers and protein scaffolds could change the way researchers study biological processes and treat disease.

In the mid-1980s, cardiologists faced a particularly vexing problem: how to measure, accurately and noninvasively, the thickness of heart tissue as it changed over time. Elias A. Zerhouni, a young radiology professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, struggled over the issue with a small team of physicists. "One day, he walked into the room with this incredible smile on his face, like you would have if you made a great molecular discovery," recalls Myron Weisfeldt, director of Hopkins' Depart

Rush Holt of AAAS talks with The Scientist about the upcoming gathering and collaborations—past, present, and future—between the two countries.

African trypanosomiasis is making an unwelcome comeback. But unlike other returning diseases, this one has a drug treatment—eflornithine—that disappeared from the market when it failed to cure cancer. Yet like Viagra's origin from a curious side effect in a clinical trial, so too was eflornithine reborn. "When it was discovered that it removes mustaches in women, it suddenly had a market: western women with mustaches," says Morten Rostrup, president of the international council for M

Scientists are using video games to tap the collective intelligence of people around the world, while doctors and educators are turning to games to treat and teach.

Swiss anthropologist Jeremy Narby counts himself among the relatively thin ranks of scientists willing to publicly announce their conviction that nature is "minded," that an intelligence lies behind the development of life. Such a position is heresy to the prevailing scientific view of naturalism, which holds that nature is self-sufficient and the result of undirected processes. These two differing viewpoints usually are framed in the context of a debate between theology and science--creationis

On June 14, a House Appropriations subcommittee gave some researchers cause for celebration when it surprisingly voted to remove a provision in a government spending bill that extended a ban on federal funding of human embryo research. However, their glee was short-lived. The full panel turned around on June 25 and adopted an amendment to continue the research ban. John Eppig, senior staff scientist at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, doubts that the ban will be overturned anytime soon,