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The cells lining blood vessels in the brain form tight, tough-to-penetrate junctions that prevent toxic molecules from slipping into the brain. Unfortunately, this blood-brain barrier also blocks cancer drugs from reaching tumor cells in the brain, creating a significant drug-delivery problem. Now, preliminary results from a Phase I/II clinical trial suggest that a small implant that emits ultrasound waves can safely open the blood-brain barrier in people, potentially allowing drugs in (Sci....

Exercise takes energy, and presumably that is what combats obesity, but provocative experiments now suggest that jiggling might be enough. For 15 minutes almost every day for 15 weeks, scientists at Stony Brook University had mice sit on a buzzing platform that almost imperceptibly vibrated at 90 times per second, accelerating up and down at 20 percent the strength of the earth’s gravitational pull. After this treatment, the mice had 27 percent less fat in their torso than mice kept on stationary platforms....

The first visit to a new doctor usually starts with yet another recitation of medical history. You recount your peanut allergy and Grandma’s hypertension but forget to mention the medication you were on two years ago. Electronic health records are designed to circumvent such problems by providing an easily shareable record of all that information in one place. The potential for greater convenience and accuracy is so clear that federal law requires doctors and hospitals to start using electronic records by 2015....

When asked to rate their own health, women, on average, consistently report being in worse health than men do, and a new study from researchers in Spain says this is because women have a higher rate of chronic diseases — contradicting a previous theory that women’s lower self-rated health is simply a reporting bias. “In general practice, there has been this idea that women over-report health problems, or are more likely to say they are ill or pay attention to their symptoms than men,” said first author of the study Davide Malmusi, of the Public Health Agency of Barcelona....

The Lemelson–M.I.T. Program recognized four student inventors Wednesday poised to make a profound impact in the areas of disease diagnostics, drug development, assistive devices such as wheelchairs, and security screening for explosives. Each of the winners—from the California Institute of Technology; Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (R.P.I.); and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (U.I.U.C.)—receives a $30,000 prize to help bring their emerging technologies to market....

In the past, when researchers sought clues in mouse models for insomnia, hyperactivity, irresponsible risk-taking, drug abuse and other behavior associated with mania, they shot up the animals with amphetamines and monitored their actions. But those experiments yielded only limited information. “Obviously, that’s not a great model because you are giving an animal amphetamines; it’s not a genetic condition,” says Colleen McClung, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas....

Rep. John Boehner resigned from Congress last week, signaling the end of his short tenure as speaker of the House. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, presided over one of the least effective (and most antiscience) Congresses in recent memory, and stepped down amidst yet another partisan battle—this one over Planned Parenthood—and vague rumor of a brewing government shutdown. But exactly how swapping out a speaker will affect science remains an open question....

Dear EarthTalk: Is there any truth to the rumor about high levels of birth control chemicals being found in some cities’ drinking water? If so can these be filtered out? – Elizabeth Yerkes, via email It is true that trace amounts of birth control and other medications—as well as household and industrial chemicals of every stripe—are present in many urban and suburban water supplies around the country, but there is considerable debate about whether their levels are high enough to warrant concern....

A chunk of ice the size of downtown Manhattan fell off the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland on August 16, the fastest moving ice sheet in the world at present. As it melts, the glacier calves off icebergs and dumps freshwater into the North Atlantic at a rapid clip, a clip that has doubled in recent years. Though this iceberg may be one of the biggest ever calved from Jakobshavn, the Greenland glacier is not unique in melting down....

The dry season was normally in full force by now, but when Saleska reached the pinnacle of the jungle lightning rod, he saw a portentous grey wave crashing toward him, targeting the galvanized steel spire on which he stood. Fearing a lightning strike like one that had recently fried some of the tower’s instruments, Saleska scrambled down and unclipped his harness just as a monsoon-quality downpour swamped the research station with an hours-long tropical deluge....

Saturn’s strange moon Titan hides many of its secrets behind layers and layers of thick haze, but scientists have now peered through the haze in a new way—and spotted a massive stretch of water ice to boot. That ice block stretches across nearly half of Titan’s girth. The feature was a surprise companion to the patches of water ice scientists expected to find, and they aren’t positive precisely what sort of geologic feature it might indicate....

Men Are Choosy, Too In numerous studies of speed dating—a rapid-fire matchmaking tool that has men hop from table to table for quick encounters—women have proved choosier than the guys about whom they flag for a second date. Ladies must be picky because they invest more in their offspring, according to the oft-repeated evolutionary theory. But when researchers made the simple switch of having women do the table hopping while men stayed seated, the two sexes suddenly became equally choosy, suggesting social norms and physical cues play an underappreciated role in mate choice....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Why don’t we have drugs to treat COVID-19 and how long will it take to develop them? SARS-CoV-2 – the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 – is completely new and attacks cells in a novel way. Every virus is different and so are the drugs used to treat them. That’s why there wasn’t a drug ready to tackle the new coronavirus that only emerged a few months ago....

The state of Maine has the nation’s oldest population, with an average age of 45.1 versus 38.5 for the U.S. overall. It is also among the country’s poorest. Fewer than one third of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Yet despite these risk factors, Maine has a remarkably low prevalence of COVID-19: at last count, there have been 5,780 cases (about 430 per 100,000 people), 463 hospitalizations and 143 deaths....

With increasing numbers of people isolated because of quarantine and social distancing, COVID-19 is not the only public health threat we should be worried about—loneliness is one as well. While scientists are rushing to understand how the coronavirus works, researchers have long understood the toll that social isolation and loneliness take on the body. People who do not feel connected to others are more likely to catch a cold, experience depression, develop heart disease, have lower cognitive function and live a shorter life....

In the heavily fished waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the red snapper has made a notable comeback. Strict US government regulations have helped to rebuild its stocks after overfishing caused a population crash in the 1980s and 1990s. Now the fish faces a new challenge: President Donald Trump, a Republican who wants to cut roughly US$50 billion from the government’s civilian agencies in 2018. Trump’s plan would eliminate the Missi-ssippi-based Sea Grant program that is poised to oversee a $12-million study of red-snapper stocks....

PASADENA, Calif.—Apart from the sun, no celestial body has influenced life on Earth as much as Jupiter. The shape of the solar system is largely its doing. In our solar system’s youth the gas giant’s footloose migration toward and away from our star flicked aside lesser worlds—a pruning that, as brutal as it was, opened up space for our planet. Jupiter may have seeded early Earth with icy materials, and later shielded us from devastating comet collisions, yet Jupiter itself is largely a cipher....

About 100 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed a forest-covered Antarctica. Temperatures were about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, according to proxy records. Carbon dioxide was present in the atmosphere at higher levels than present day. This period, known as “Cenomanian,” poses a problem for today’s computer-driven global climate models. These models are algorithmic representations of our climate used by scientists, and they are key for understanding and planning how to deal with a warmer world....

Hearing a punch line before the setup will predictably spoil a joke. But what of running gags and callbacks? Often a joke is funnier when it is familiar. An article published online in December 2013 in Cognition and Emotion resolves this paradox by applying research on insight. Sascha Topolinski, a psychologist at the University of Cologne in Germany, studies processing fluency: when information is absorbed easily, it feels more true and beautiful....

The problem with generating electricity by harnessing the wind is that it doesn’t always blow. And typically, consumers remain intolerant of power interruptions. But there may be a way to ensure a steady supply of wind. The key? Sea breezes—and a lot of wiring. Willett Kempton, director of the University of Delaware’s Center for Carbon-Free Power Integration, and his colleagues analyzed wind patterns from 11 sites on the U.S. East Coast, from Maine to Florida....