Many Families With High Breast Cancer Risk Await a Genetic Explanation

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

For decades, Piri Welcsh has had professional and personal stakes in understanding the genetics of breast cancer. In the 1990s, the molecular geneticist participated in an international race to clone BRCA1, the first gene linked to breast cancer risk, and she works to this day in the lab of pioneering breast cancer geneticist Mary-Claire King at the University of Washington. And then there’s Welcsh’s own family. Her grandmother died of breast cancer, her mother is a breast cancer ...read more

Can Men Tell When Women are Ovulating? Decades of Creepy Experiments Still Can’t Prove It

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

For most animals, sex time is obvious. During the fertile phase of their reproductive cycles, females go into heat. They act, smell and look different, sending an unambiguous signal to males: “Come impregnate me.” But what about humans? Women have sex throughout their menstrual cycles, and don’t show conspicuous outward changes around ovulation — the time of month when pregnancy can occur. Yet many researchers think there are subtle clues that a lady is in her fertile w ...read more

NASA Budget Proposal Funds Mars Sample Return, Slashes Other Missions

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday to talk about the proposed NASA budget for 2020. While Bridenstine referred to the Trump administration's proposed NASA budget as “strong,” and emphasized that funding for spaceflight exploration is high, the budget proposal also strikes funding from some missions. And, in total, it allocates $500 million less than what Congress appropriated for NASA last year. Congress, not the executive ...read more

Few Remaining Paths Lead to a Tolerable Amount of Climate Change

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Climate change is riddled with questions that have uncertain answers. How fast will Earth’s population grow? When will renewables become affordable enough to take over? How much carbon dioxide can the oceans suck up? But even with these uncertainties, researchers in a new study say it's clearer than ever that the actions society chooses to take today will dictate the climate for future generations. “They make clear our choices — in a world of uncertain ...read more

The SciStarter team is hitting the road.

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The best part of our work is meeting the people who power citizen science either by visiting and joining SciStarter, engaging in projects, or sharing, saving, or facilitating projects and events. If you're receiving this message, that includes YOU! We'd love to meet you in person at any of the following events. Fingers crossed that one of them takes place near you. If so, please come say "hi!" Cheers! The SciStarter Team Citizen Science Association Conference, Raleigh NC, M ...read more