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[NEWS] Deep in the ear, 95 percent of the cells that shuttle sound to the brain are big, boisterous neurons that, to date, have explained most of what scientists know about how hearing works. Whether a rare, whisper-small second set of cells also carry signals from the inner ear to the brain and have a real role in processing sound has been a matter of debate. Now, reporting on rat experiments in the October 22 issue of Nature, a Johns Hopkins team says it has for what is believed to be the fir…

The fossil remains of some of the first animals with shells, ocean-dwelling creatures that measure a few centimeters in length and date to about 520 million years ago, provide a window on evolution at this time, according to scientists. Their research indicates that these animals were larger than previously thought.

Scientists unravel the mechanism by which the lethal frog disease sweeping the world kills its victims.

Today's stories on newscientist.com, at a glance, including: why the sun's corona is so hot, the oldest known underwater town, and why the ESA is running a 500-day fake mission to Mars

NASA's return to the Moon, scheduled for 2020, may possibly be delayed. A report, requested by President Obama and prepared by a panel of scientists and experts, lays out the current and future plans for manned space travel. There is a dilemma with the current state of the space program. Namely, the next generation of space orbiters, the Orion capsule, is scheduled to be completed in 2017, a year after the international space station is set to be retired. And the rest of the lunar landing project would not be ready by 2017, eliminating the need for such a capsule until at least 2020. So, the panel suggested that instead of continuing to invest money into a program that could sit idle for years, NASA should invest money to develop a smaller capsule that could fly on an already existing rocket. This would allow NASA to transport both commercial and scientific equipment to low Earth orbit (LEO). The panel also suggested that the timetable that had been laid out for visiting the Moon as

The headlines were different when the biweekly broadsheet began, but the engine of innovation behind them was the same as it is today: science.

Scientists identify a group of galaxies said to be at a record distance of 10.2 billion light-years away from Earth.

[NEWS] Cancer cells fueled by the mutant KRAS oncogene, which makes them notoriously difficult to treat, can be killed by blocking a more vulnerable genetic partner of KRAS, report scientists at the Dana-Farber cancer institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. The laboratory results, published by Nature on its Web site as an advanced online publication and later in a print edition, demonstrate a potential advance against many major tumors which, because they harbor the mutant KRAS cancer ge…

The inflammatory response following a spinal cord injury appears to be set up to cause extra tissue damage instead of promoting healing, new research suggests. Scientists analyzing this inflammatory response in mice discovered that the types of cells recruited to the site of the injury are dominated within a week by those that promote inflammation. When chronic, inflammation can prevent healing, and these inflammatory cells are believed to remain at the injury site indefinitely.

When Nancy Sutley moved in to her new office as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)--a 40-year-old White House environmental policy advisory office created by Congress--she found a lot of red pens. Immediately, she removed the pens from her desk and asked her staff to remove any red pens from their desks, as well. [More]