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Harvey G. Klein, chief of the department of transfusion medicine for the National Institutes of Health, explains. The types of proteins, glycoproteins and glycolipids found (or expressed) on the surface of red blood cells define blood types. In addition, blood types, or at least the genes responsible for them, are inherited. Karl Landsteiner described the original blood types–A, B and O–in 1900 and doctors now recognize 23 blood group systems with hundreds of different “types....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. For many people, the origins of the Christian church are shrouded in obscurity outside of the biblical narratives concerning Jesus Christ and his Jewish followers. Yet, after the crucifixion of Jesus and the initial missions work across the Mediterranean of Disciples and Apostles such as St. Peter, St....

On December 12, 1972, Gene Cernan parked his moon buggy in the southeastern edge of the Sea of Serenity, in a valley named Taurus-Littrow. A gray hill called the North Massif loomed in the distance. On its western side was a slumping escarpment, nicknamed the Lee-Lincoln scarp. It was a landslide, forming a low wall that seemed to cross the valley, like a shrug in a shoulder of the moon. Cernan and his seatmate, fellow astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, stared at it and snapped some pictures....

What causes a fever? Peter Nalin, a physician and associate professor of clinical family medicine and director of the family practice residency program at Indiana University, explains: Fever—an elevated body temperature—is usually related to stimulation of the body’s immune system. (Normal temperature fluctuates from about one degree below 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to one degree above that number.) Fever can support the immune system’s attempt to gain advantage over infectious agents, and it makes the body less favorable as a host for replicating viruses and bacteria, which are temperature sensitive....

A computer model of carbon dioxide in ice cracks has two MIT researchers speculating that the greenhouse gas could structurally weaken glaciers, which are already under pressure from global warming. Materials scientist Markus Buehler, a professor at MIT, studies the mechanical properties of fracturing in everything from spider silk to bones. He works on a nano-sized scale, looking at the bonds between molecules and atoms. Even an iceberg the size of Manhattan starts with a single broken bond, so Buehler and postdoctoral scholar Zhao Qin decided to investigate what happens when ice fractures....

In a tragic turn of events, police yesterday found convicted “spam king” Edward “Eddie” Davidson dead, along with his wife and three-year-old daughter in Bennett, Colo., the victims of an apparent murder/suicide. The incident occurred four days after Davidson, 35, escaped from a minimum-security prison in Florence, Colo., 130 miles (209 kilometers) away as his wife Amy Lee Ann Hill, 29, was leaving after visiting him. The two drove off in Hill’s Toyota SUV, which was later found at the murder scene....

Millions of people suffer from hives or shortness of breath when they encounter everyday exposures such as pollens or peanuts. In their most favorable light you could think of your allergies as a really annoying super power, with telltale wheezing signaling your body senses the presence of something that you don’t see or consciously smell. Despite decades of inquiry, however, scientists remain unable to pin down why allergies occur. Because allergic reactions basically mirror the way our body responds to parasites such as worms, working to expel them through sneezes, vomiting or watery eyes, the prevailing belief among allergy experts is that allergies are just an unfortunate misdirected immune response....

By Declan Butler of Nature magazineHow much radiation is ‘unsafe’ for humans? For those exposed to fallout from the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the question is all too real. But there is still no good answer: the accident has highlighted the enormous difficulties in estimating the long-term health risks of relatively low doses of radiation.A group of leading researchers in Europe had hoped that a fresh round of studies on people exposed to radiation after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 would finally begin to help fill this yawning science gap (see ‘Lessons from the past’)....

The higher temperatures, humidity and rainfall associated with climate change have intensified outbreaks of West Nile virus infections across the United States in recent years, according to a study published this week. One of the largest surveys of West Nile virus cases to date links warming weather patterns and increasing rainfall–both projected to accelerate with global warming–to outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease across 17 states from 2001 to 2005. The authors predict the pattern will only get worse....

Even as U.S. honeybee populations have been hit hard by colony collapse disorder in recent years, domesticated beehives have been thriving elsewhere. In an analysis of nearly 50 years of data on bees from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, researchers found that domesticated honeybee populations have increased about 45 percent, thanks in large part to expansion of the bees into areas such as South America, eastern Asia and Africa....

If all goes according to plan, two spacecraft will commence close encounters of the curious kind with two separate asteroids by the end of August. Their goal: to retrieve samples that may contain organic materials dating back to the solar system’s birth. These building blocks may be key to understanding the origins of the planets and of life on Earth—and could also make future space prospectors very rich. Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe is on track to arrive at a kilometer-wide asteroid called Ryugu on June 27....

Simple swabs and vials play crucial roles in transporting blood, saliva and other fluids during medical lab tests. Samples on cotton swabs dry out rapidly, however, and vials can require an additional transfer step before analysis. Now researchers have found that a felt marker’s fibrous tip—without ink, of course—can double as an effective, long-lasting sampler. Physicist Igor Popov and his team at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology bought replacement tips, designed to hold inks for long periods without drying, that are used in a popular commercial marker....

Consider the pig. Perhaps your mouth is already watering at the thought of crispy bacon, juicy ribs, savory ham and spicy sausage. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that people eat pork in more places worldwide than any other meat, with it making up 36 percent of all carnivorous consumption. Americans consume about 50 pounds per person every year—and that is nothing compared with China, where people eat twice as much....

Apollo Robbins, master pickpocket and celebrity magician, is sweeping his hands around the body of the fellow he has just chosen from the audience. “What I’m doing now is fanning you,” he informs his mark, “just checking to see what you have in your pockets.” Apollo’s hands move in a flurry of gentle strokes and pats over the man’s clothes. More than 200 scientists are watching him like hawks, trying to catch a glimpse of fingers trespassing into a pocket....

We now know where on the moon NASA astronauts will set foot after more than 50 years’ absence. The agency announced 13 potential landing regions for its Artemis 3 mission during a news conference held on Friday (Aug. 19). All the candidates are clustered near the south pole of the moon, an area of key scientific and exploration interest alike. “They’re of value to the scientific community and the technology community,” Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for the Artemis Campaign Development Division at NASA, said during the news conference....

Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron and Kinder Morgan are facing renewed pressure from climate-focused activist investors. This year some of the most powerful shareholders, which include giant mutual funds, are supporting the push for businesses to respond to climate change. And the prodding has had more effect than ever before. The coming weeks are dubbed “proxy season” by corporate governance experts. Most publicly traded companies hold annual meetings in which shareholders, via nonbinding resolutions, signal their approval or dislike of proposed company policies....

Philosopher of science David Buller has a bone to pick with evolutionary psychology, the idea that some important human behaviors are best explained as evolutionary adaptations to the struggles we faced tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago as hunter-gatherers. In his new book, Adapting Minds, the Northern Illinois University professor considers–and finds lacking–the evidence for some of the most publicized conclusions of evolutionary psychologists: Men innately prefer to mate with young, nubile women, while women have evolved to seek high status men; men are wired to have a strong jealous reaction to sexual infidelity, while women react to emotional infidelity; and parents are more likely to abuse stepchildren than their genetically related children....

Mildred Dresselhaus, the so-called “queen of carbon science,” took home the $1-million Kavli Prize in Nanoscience today. The materials scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was awarded for her work in revealing the strange thermal and electrical properties that carbon develops at the atomic scale. These discoveries helped lead to the development of novel materials, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, which have applications in energy, medicine, optics and electronics....

Scientists have long conjectured that climate change would spur families in poor countries to migrate as ever-fiercer storms, floods and other disasters made rural life unbearable. But understanding what specific weather elements would cause people to leave has remained elusive. Until now. A small but growing body of evidence is finally pointing to rising temperatures—and not headline-grabbing natural disasters—as the main environmental force permanently ousting people from their homes. A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences follows more than 7,000 households in Indonesia over 15 years to conclude that sudden disasters in fact have a much smaller impact on provincial migration than heat stress....

A little Valentine’s Day tip: if you want to curl ribbons using a pair of scissors, researchers say the secret is to be firm but slow. Conventional wisdom supposes that a quick scrape of the blade makes for tight curls, but slowing things down seems to give the ribbon more time to adjust to its new, curly state, says physicist Buddhapriya Chakrabarti of Harvard University, part of a team that tested different curling methods....