Museum of Science and Industry

Next time you get your vision checked, the eye doctor may be taking a look at your brain! The retina in the back of your eyes holds blood vessels that are a good indicator of overall blood vessel health inside your brain. In a recent study of women over 65, participants who had retinal vessel trouble also showed more brain vessel damage. They also scored about 15% lower in tests...

Hooray, it’s summer vacation time! After a day packed with sightseeing, fun in the sun, and huge meals in a new and exciting place, it always feels great to flop down on the hotel bed and flip on the TV. But wait! You may have just touched the dirtiest, germiest thing in the room!

In a small preliminary study, scientists tested surfaces in hotel rooms to...

On May 8, Englishwoman Claire Lomas finished the London Marathon. Oh, did I mention that since Claire was paralyzed from the chest down in a horse-riding accident five years ago, she only walked the whole thing in a bionic suit?

Claire’s tremendous accomplishment, which took a total of 16 days, was made possible by the

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Well, good news, scientist-wizards: the creator of a new blood-type test cites a bit of magic from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as his inspiration!

Engineer Wei Shen created a papery surface for blood testing that displays its results by “writing” the blood type letter of the sample that touches it. Shen says...

Here are some alternate titles considered for this blog post: “Honey: It’s What the Doctor Ordered,” “Pour Some Honey on Me,” “Harry Potter and the Unkillable Honey-Man.” That last one's mostly to try and score some extra Google hits, but any of them would be appropriate for this blog post over at Scientific American, which describes what two recent studies have found...