Science

A legal expert gave an eyebrow-raising opinion on a controversial effort in Texas, where the state's far-right attorney general last week sued a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a woman in suburban Dallas.

MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin shared a startling update to the lawsuit from Ken Paxton against an abortion provider after a woman lost her pregnancy.

The coffin of St. Nicholas — considered the primary inspiration for Santa Claus due to his generosity — may have been discovered at an archeological dig site.

A sarcophagus was discovered in a two-story annex of the Church of St. Nicholas in Turkey, Fox News reported. Experts have long believed it is the famous bishop's original burial site, where the church initially stood. About 200 years after the bishop's death, another church was built on the ruins of his original church.

A black-and-cream leopard shark enters a hypnotic-like state of relaxation as scientists at Sydney Aquarium carefully roll her onto her back in a small pool.

The shark, named Zimba, is one of the first captive leopard sharks in the world to be artificially inseminated with the sperm of wild sharks in an attempt to build populations around the world.

Infectious or chronic diseases such as long COVID, Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury can cause inflammation in the brain, or neuroinflammation, that weakens muscles. While scientists are aware of this link between inflammation and muscle weakness, the molecules and processes involved have been unclear.

In our research, our team of neuroscientists and biologists uncovered the hidden conversation between the brain and muscles that triggers muscle fatigue, and potential ways to treat it.

In 2017, NASA discovered and later confirmed the first interstellar object to enter our Solar System.

It wasn’t aliens. But artist impressions of the object (called ‘Oumuamua, the Hawaiian word for “scout”) do resemble an alien spaceship out of a sci-fi novel. This strange depiction is because astronomers don’t quite know how to classify the interstellar visitor.

Three years ago, Andrea Vanek was studying to be an arts and crafts teacher when spells of dizziness and heart palpitations suddenly started to make it impossible for her to even take short walks.

After seeing a succession of doctors she was diagnosed with long COVID and even now spends most of her days in the small living room of her third-floor Vienna apartment, sitting on the windowsill to observe the world outside.

An MSNBC panel was left confused and uncomfortably laughing Friday afternoon during a discussion over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s curious questionnaire he's using to vet candidates to work under him at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Last week, Puck News reported on Kennedy's “Make America Healthy Again” website, where people who want to work for him can respond to questions with odd pre-written responses.

To hear Donald Trump tell it, his first administration was on a roll and doing well until the 2020 pandemic hit the country and shut down the global economy. Now conspiracy theorists think that President Joe Biden will try to sabotage a new incoming administration by starting another plague or even a civil war.

Mother Jones reported Friday that the right fears the spread of avian flu will take hold in the U.S. and that Trump will be forced to put aside his agenda to deal with it. In addition to avian flu, "last week, a mysterious flu-like outbreak was identified after killing dozens of people in Congo, where it is circulating alongside a new strain of pox that is also spreading elsewhere in eastern and southern Africa," the report said.

A new study suggests dogs can learn to express themselves by pressing buttons to create two or more word combinations.

Researchers have been following several thousand dogs since 2022 whose button presses are logged through an app designed by Fluent Pet, which makes soundboards, and they then selected 152 dogs who were pressing two or more buttons in a sequence and found they frequently selected their own name, followed by "want" and then topics like "food" or "outside," reported the Washington Post.

by Issam AHMED

The common murre, a large black-and-white seabird native to northern waters, has become far less common in Alaska over the past decade due to the impacts of climate change.

Most of what we know about humans living to very old age is based on faulty data, including the science behind the "blue zones" famous for having a high proportion of people over 100, according to one researcher.

The desire to live as long as possible has driven a booming lifestyle industry selling supplements, books, tech and tips to those wanting to learn the secrets of the world's oldest people.

by Tomohiro OSAKI

People with missing teeth may be able to grow new ones, say Japanese dentists testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants.

Shortly after he was elected, Donald Trump announced an economic gambit that was aggressive even by his standards. He vowed that, on the first day of his second term, he would slap 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, and boost those already placed on Chinese products by another 10 percent.

The move set off a frenzy of pushback. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even flew to the president-elect’s Florida resort to make his case. Economists say the potential levies threaten to upend global trade — including on green technologies, many of which are manufactured in China. The moves would cause price spikes for everything from electric vehicles and heat pumps to solar panels.