Patrick Hardison was fighting a mobile home fire in Senatobia, Mississippi, in 2001 when he got trapped inside. The flames melted his face mask, and when the other firefighters pulled him out, his face was still on fire. He spent the next two months in the hospital, and had more than 70 surgeries over the…

It’s hard to follow all of the big science news day-in and day-out. But at Tech Insider, that’s our job: to bring you the most interesting and important developments in research, current events, and the science of everyday life. Keep scrolling to see 10 more highlights on the best science stories of the past week. READ…

Reaching for the low-fat alternative at the grocery store seems like an easy way to lose weight, but it’s not making much of a difference, according to a new study published Oct. 29 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. A team of Harvard researchers reviewed 53 different randomized control trials that included over 68,000 people. They compared low-fat diets to…

A new method to target melanoma that was just approved by the FDA could be an important first step in transforming the way we treat many cancers. The treatment is called Imlygic,and it uses a virus to kill skin cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells alone. It’s not terribly effective yet, and it’s still in…

Someone who is unconditionally kind is likely to be worthy of your trust, particularly when it comes to economic decisions, a recent study found: There’s a strong correlation between kindness and trustworthiness. Researchers in Germany conducted three experiments that all supported this conclusion, which they reported recently in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. READ…

Let’s face it: drawing circles is hard. Our minds are programmed to love the symmetry of the shape, but our hands just can’t make it perfect. We’re so inadequate at drawing circles, scientists have even studied it. READ MORE

Mountain goats are amazing. They can climb super high on really steep cliffs like it’s nothing. They hang out on mountaintops for most of the year, shedding their shaggy winter coat when they lower their elevation for the spring and summer. How do mountain goats climb so well? What are their secrets? Here are some facts…

The snow that falls on Antarctica every year is accumulating as ice faster than it’s melting on the continent, a new study from NASA found. This is strange news to many scientists. Most research to dateassumes Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting and contributing to global sea level rise. But the authors of the new study,…

If you order “wild salmon” in a restaurant, that may not be what ends up on your plate — especially during the out-of-season winter months. A new report from the advocacy group Oceana found that 43% of “wild salmon” samples collected between December and March were mislabeled. And in restaurants during that period, this figure…

When nature devastates, it can also bring life.