Life Science

What exactly is fear? In this article, we'll examine the psychological and physical properties of fear, find out what causes a fear response and look at some ways you can defeat it.

By Julia Layton

Twins are unique people who are also eerily similar to each other. Do twins really have ESP? Learn how twinning happens and what types of twins are out there.

By Katherine Neer

Poison ivy is often very difficult to spot. But if you come into contact with it, you'll soon know by the itchy, blistery rash that forms on your skin. Learn how poison ivy causes that rash, and how to get rid of it.

By Stephanie Wilson

If you've kept up with the news lately, you've probably heard dire warnings about avian flu, or bird flu. In this article, we'll review the basics of how viruses and influenza work, and we'll learn the answers to these and other questions about avian flu, including whether it is likely to cause a global flu epidemic.

By Tracy V. Wilson

While most flu sufferers moan and groan for about a week and then return to work, the flu season creates more than just discomfort and a costly loss of work days.

By Stephanie Watson

We hear about them on the news and we listen to politicians argue for and against them using them to treat disease. Learn all about stem cells and the research, challenges and controversy that surround them.

By Stephanie Watson & Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D.

Dozens of people are frozen in cryogenic storage facilities, waiting to be revived when science is able to cure whatever killed them. But if they're dead, is revival from a frozen state even possible? Find out.

By Stephanie Watson

Dreams combine verbal, visual and emotional stimuli into mystifying storylines. Should we bother to interpret them? Are they random brain impulses, or do they offer insight into our waking lives?

By Lee Ann Obringer & Yves Jeffcoat

How can the grass on the greens at a golf course be so perfect? What are they doing that's different from a normal lawn? Could my lawn look like this?

By Austin Henderson

While most psychologists believe that brainwashing is possible under the right conditions, some see it as improbable or at least as a less severe form of influence than the media portrays it to be. So how does someone get brainwashed?

By Julia Layton & Alia Hoyt

Stress is just around every corner for most of us these days. Reducing it requires you to learn the various types of stress, their different causes and how to deal with them.

By Betty Burrows

Learn the physiological processes that trigger a coma, how an actual coma differs from television depictions and how often people awaken after months or even years of being in a coma.

By Stephanie Watson

Think of goosebumps as 'skin orgasms' that are caused by unexpected and pleasant experiences. You know you get them when you're cold, but what is going on in our brains that triggers them?

By Jennifer Walker-Journey

Mangroves provide a habitat for wildlife such as fish, birds, deer and insects. They also stabilize shorelines, protect against storm surges and improve water quality. What's not to love?

By Stephanie Parker

Snake plants are attractive and virtually ironclad houseplants, almost impossible to kill, though some of the hype about them acting as air purifying filters has been overblown.

By Jesslyn Shields

The Bionic Reading app has exploded in popularity. But can it really make you a speed reader?

By Sharise Cunningham

The nitrogen cycle is the system by which nitrogen is converted into different chemical forms, some usable to humans and animals and some not, as it circulates among the atmosphere, the land and the oceans.

By Jesslyn Shields

Organisms not related to each other can develop similar physical attributes without even exchanging notes.

By Jesslyn Shields

Do we owe the emergence of language and self-reflection to the ancient and sustained consumption of psilocybin mushrooms?

By Robert Lamb & Austin Henderson

Erosion and weather can combine to make rock formations look like all kinds of things, from human faces to animals. They're called mimetoliths and we've taken a look at four of the most famous.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

The question of exactly what is human consciousness and how it came to be in the human mind has raged forever between philosophers, religious scholars and scientists, but does the theory of the bicameral mind explain it?

By Robert Lamb

Mold is a type of fungus, and it's everywhere — indoors, outdoors and even in the air. But is black mold worse than the rest? Is it as deadly as people say?

By Melanie Radzicki McManus & Austin Henderson

They might look like piles of goop, but slime molds can think and seemingly make decisions without a brain.

By Jesslyn Shields

Niels Bohr proposed the model of the atom that we still learn in school today, even though it's technically incorrect.

By Jesslyn Shields

This new form of sound therapy takes advantage of the fact that a different frequency in each ear yields a third frequency that can allegedly calm you down or improve your focus. Does it really work? Our writer tried it out.

By Alia Hoyt