Rae Ellen Bichell

People are dumping corpses in the high desert of western Colorado. But those unloading bodies aren't criminal masterminds. They're scientists. And out here, the usual rules of human decay don't apply.

In medieval times, they called it "the black death." It's still around, routinely cropping up in the U.S. This time, the New Mexico Department of Health reports three cases.

Twenty years. That's how long two grad students, Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel, think they have before a deadly disease envelops Sonia's brain. The Massachusetts couple is now racing to find a cure.

Sonia Vallabh knows that by the time she's middle-aged, a rare inherited disease will likely start killing off her brain cells. She and her husband have become scientists to try to stop the disease.

The small spacecraft is set to hurtle toward the sun at about 450,000 miles per hour. Scientists hope it will clear up some big mysteries, such as why the sun's atmosphere is hotter than its surface.

The hairless, ground-dwelling, cold-blooded rodents have proven capable of surviving total oxygen deprivation. Their odd biology allows them to run on an alternative fuel.

Researchers found that a protein in human umbilical cord plasma improved learning and memory in older mice, but there's no indication it would work in people.

Eels sometimes swim thousands of miles from their birthplace in the Atlantic to rivers and lakes where they live. Researchers say the creatures might use the Earth's magnetic field to find their way.

They're the Godzillas of the virus world, pushing the limit of what is considered alive. Researchers are trying to figure out where they came from. (And no, they aren't known to make people sick.)

Researchers following a group of New Zealanders over the course of 40 years found an association between childhood lead exposure and declines in intelligence and socioeconomic status later in life.

Meet Kate Rubins, a virus-hunter turned astronaut. When she sequenced DNA in space for the first time, she opened the door to a new era in space biology.

After six weeks of training, people could memorize twice as much. Areas of the brain had begun communicating in new ways — a lot like what happens inside the heads of world memory champions.

They don't have wings, but bacteria sure can fly. Researchers at MIT say that tiny bubbles trapped by raindrops play a part in launching bacteria on long-distance flights.

U.S. emissions of smog-forming pollutants have dropped, but smog levels in the western U.S. have increased each year. Now, researchers say, they've found out why — it's wafting from across the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists say they've found the remains of tube- and string-like organisms in Canadian rocks that are at least 3.7 billion years old. But findings like these are always controversial.

Scientists found that bumblebees are nimble learners, especially when there's a sugary reward at the end. No wonder they're such good pollinators.

The planet's magnetic field is weakening. Scientists aren't sure why, but studying ancient jars could help them find out. The ceramics provide a remarkable window onto Earth's magnetic past.

Carp are a major food source, but they've been plagued by viruses. Scientists now say they have a simple solution. And along the way, they hit on an ancient commonality between fish and people.

Wild hogs inflict $1.5 billion in damage on U.S. property each year. But biologists can now track the elusive animals via tiny bits of DNA the swine leave behind in puddles and ponds.

Scientists now have a fairly noninvasive way to test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare form of dementia. A similar test, they say, might offer earlier diagnoses of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.