Ire follows article detailing tests on unwitting aboriginal citizens in the 1940s and 1950s. Canadian government scientists used malnourished native populations as unwitting subjects in experiments conducted in the 1940s and 1950s to test nutritional interventions. The tests, many of which involved children at state-funded residential schools, had been largely forgotten until they were described […]
Nature
Silver makes antibiotics thousands of times more effective
Ancient antimicrobial treatment could help to solve modern bacterial resistance. Like werewolves and vampires, bacteria have a weakness: silver. The precious metal has been used to fight infection for thousands of years — Hippocrates first described its antimicrobial properties in 400 bc — but how it works has been a mystery. Now, a team led by James […]
Making the most of muscle oxygen
Animals have evolved a variety of ways to get oxygen under extreme conditions. Oxygen is vital for life, and animals have developed various ways to ensure they can access it under extreme conditions — deep under water, at high altitude or in times of stress. Three papers published today in Science examine the ways that different animals […]
Refurbished Alvin submersible returns to sea
After a two-year, $41 million upgrade, the venerable Alvin submersible is about to return to sea. On 25 May, the research ship Atlantis will leave the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with Alvin on board, bound for Astoria, Oregon. After a series of Navy certification cruises in September and a scientific verification cruise in November, […]
Heavy sleepers
A growing body of evidence shows that getting a good night’s sleep plays an important role in regulating the body’s metabolism. Burning the midnight oil can leave you tired and grumpy the next day, dulling your mind and slowing your reaction times. But lack of sleep has consequences beyond the brain as well, with long-term […]
Gut microbe may fight obesity and diabetes
Bacterium helps to regulate metabolism in mice. The gut is home to innumerable different bacteria — a complex ecosystem that has an active role in a variety of bodily functions. In a study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers finds that in mice, just one of those […]
Seafood diet killing Arctic foxes on Russian island
Mercury pollution in marine animals may be behind a population crash. An isolated population of Arctic foxes that dines only on marine animals seems to be slowly succumbing to mercury poisoning. The foxes on Mednyi Island — one of Russia’s Commander Islands in the Bering Sea — are a subspecies of Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) […]
Magic trick transforms conservatives into liberals
‘Choice blindness’ can induce voters to reverse their party loyalty. When US presidential candidate Mitt Romney said last year that he was not even going to try to reach 47% of the US electorate, and that he would focus on the 5–10% thought to be floating voters, he was articulating a commonly held opinion: that […]
Canada puts commercialization ahead of blue-sky research
Federal budget boosts clean-energy research and university infrastructure. Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty yesterday released the country’s 2013 budget, calling it “a plan for jobs, growth and long-term prosperity”, words that will please some of the budget’s main beneficiaries: those working in applied research. But for those who argue that investments in basic research are […]
Slow science
The world’s longest-running experiments remind us that science is a marathon, not a sprint. Although science is a long-term pursuit, research is often practised over short timescales: a discrete experiment or a self-contained project constrained by the length of a funding cycle. But some investigations cannot be rushed. To study human lifespans or the roiling […]