The coming fifth generation of wireless communication technology, 5G for short, promises to make everything better. Except your health. 5G is designed to make wireless service faster and more connected, while also being cheaper and using less energy. It’s possible, because 5G uses shorter wavelengths that can send data as much as 1,000 times faster than today’s 4G standard. As...

As a culture, we’re so busy grappling for solutions, racing to conclusions and viscerally reacting to what’s on the screen in front of our faces, that we’re bypassing the deeper, interior assets of the human brain. According to Gallup pollsters, only one-third of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers feel engaged in their work. This has a significant effect on the...

“If the ocean dies,” said Paul Watson, founder of the activist group Sea Shepherds, “we die.” The oceans aren’t in hospice care yet, but they qualify for a bed in the intensive care ward. And we’re also on the waiting list. Only about half the oxygen we breathe comes from trees and other ground-rooted plants. The other half is released...

A survey of more than 14,000 college freshmen in 19 colleges across eight countries found that a third of the students reported symptoms consistent with a diagnosable mental health disorder, according to the American Psychological Association. Major depression was the most common disorder, evinced by 35 percent of the respondents; 30 percent admitted symptoms that indicate a generalized anxiety disorder....

Clean water is becoming scarcer at a time when the world’s population is growing. Now, scientists at the University of New South Wales and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia have found a way to make dirty water clean enough to drink. The researchers have developed a simple filtering sheet that cleans up dirty H2O. The Aussies found...

Despite the thriving universe of craft beers, the U.S. market for beer is shrinking, as younger drinkers have a long list of coffees, teas, energy drinks, and more exotic beverages that distract them from plain old brew. That’s one reason why total US beer sales fell 1 percent in 2017. So, the biggest brewing companies are looking beyond beer. Heineken’s...

A Canadian study suggests that the epidemic of childhood obesity may be caused in part by the chemicals in typical antibacterial household cleaners. The researchers theorize that such chemicals are absorbed through the lungs, skin, or mouth (babies taste everything) and find their way into babies’ intestines. Once there, they kill off key elements of infants’ gut bacteria, rendering children...

And it started beating on its own. In a lab, the scientists created a scaffold of nanofibers made of gelatin and a biodegradable plastic. Then they seeded it with living heart cells. After a few days, the heart cells had reproduced, covered the scaffold, and it started to beat. Housed in a container simulating conditions in a living body, the...

Anyone who’s had to manhandle a 4-by-8-foot sheet of plywood into place and hold it steady while nailing it to a wall will appreciate the construction robots developed at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The humanoids are designed to ease the shortage of construction laborers in a nation with one of the oldest populations on Earth....

Instead of starting a cancer patient on a drug and then waiting weeks to see if it works, scientists at Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have come up with an innovative way to speed up the news. The team has created cubic electronic nanosensors coated with a substance that lets them pass through the intestinal walls and into the...