Science

The MIT Origami Club crafted Thanksgiving-themed paper sculptures. Image: Dominick Reuter

In theory, Origami is simple: Take a sheet of paper, follow the dotted lines and without the use of scissors or glue, you’ve got a paper crane. It stands to reason that if you’re good at following instructions, you’re good at origami. And that’s true—anyone can fold their way to a simple paper crane. But truly grasping the geometric complexities of that crane? That’s actually pretty brainy stuff.

Multi-millionaire investment manager, and world's first space tourist, Dennis Tito has been testifying before the US Congress about his plans for a 501-day trip around Mars and back.

He says he'll need government money to meet the planned schedule of a 2018 launch.

MIT researchers have found that Kepler 78b, a small, intensely hot planet 400 light-years from Earth discovered by the researchers in August, shares Earth’s mass.

By analyzing the movement of its host star, Kepler 78, the scientists determined that the exoplanet is about 1.7 times as massive as the Earth.

NASA scientists say the first tests of what could someday become an outer space Internet have far surpassed their expectations.

"It's been beyond what we expected," said Don Cornwell, the Lunar Laser Communications Mission manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We obviously expected it would work well, but this is even better... Everything going better than we thought it would. We're running these systems error free."

Scientists from the University of Sheffield believe they have found life arriving to Earth from space after sending a balloon 27km into the stratosphere.

After it landed, they discovered that they had captured a diatom fragment and some unusual biological entities from the stratosphere, all of which are too large to have come from Earth, the scientists suggest. The team was led by Professor (Hon. Cardiff and Buckingham Universities) Milton Wainwright, from the University’s Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

A girl who does not feel physical pain has helped researchers identify a gene mutation that disrupts pain perception. The discovery may spur the development of new painkillers that will block pain signals in the same way.

People with congenital analgesia cannot feel physical pain and often injure themselves as a result – they might badly scald their skin, for example, through being unaware that they are touching something hot.

You've no doubt heard NASA has officially declared that its Voyager 1 spacecraft has left our solar system, becoming the first-ever human-made object to do so. But have you heard the trippy soundtrack Voyager sent back from interstellar space?

An Italian astronaut who nearly drowned during a July 16 spacewalk outside the International Space Station used his blog to describe the terrifying ordeal.

"At this exact moment... I 'feel' that something is wrong," Luca Parmitano, an astronaut with the European Space Agency, wrote in a blog post. "The unexpected sensation of water at the back of my neck surprises me -- and I'm in a place where I'd rather not be surprised."

Chemically modified inhibitors of the COX-2 enzyme relieve anxiety behaviors in mice by activating natural "endocannabinoids" without gastrointestinal side effects, Vanderbilt University scientists will report next week.

Endocannabinoids are natural signaling molecules that activate cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same receptors turned on by the active ingredient in marijuana.

A boost in the speed of brain scans is unveiling new insights into how brain regions work with each other in cooperative groups called networks.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Institute of Technology and Advanced Biomedical Imaging at the University of Chieti, Italy, used the quicker scans to track brain activity in volunteers at rest and while they watched a movie.