19 November 2009
Sunscreen, cosmetics cause genetic damage
Titanium dioxide nanoparticles - found in common household products such as cosmetics, sunscreen and vitamins – were found to cause systemic genetic damage in mice...

18 November 2009
Oscar Pistorius' artificial limbs provide "major advantage for sprinting"
Human performance experts say that the artificial lower limbs of double-amputee Oscar Pistorius give him a major advantage over his competition - lopping at least 10 seconds off the 400-meter sprint...

17 November 2009
Common chemical found to feminize boys' brains
Adding to an earlier investigation that linked two common phthalates to abnormal male genital development, the same researchers now say that those chemicals can also alter masculine brain development, making boys less likely to play with male-typical toys and games...

16 November 2009
Universal quantum processor demonstrated
Physicists have demonstrated a "universal" programmable quantum information processor that uses two quantum bits of information to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics...

13 November 2009
Rosetta anomaly stumps scientists
When Rosetta swings by Earth today for a critical gravity assist, orbital data will be collected that could help unravel a cosmic mystery that has stumped scientists for two decades...

12 November 2009
Plastics workers risk impotence, ejaculation difficulties
A groundbreaking study into Bisphenol-A exposure amongst Chinese factory workers has found that men working in environments where the chemical was present had quadruple the risk of erectile dysfunction and seven times more risk of ejaculation difficulty...

10 November 2009
Biologists plot concept of "organismality"
A new paper argues that high levels of cooperation and low levels of conflict - from the genetic level on up - give a living thing its "organismality," whether it's an animal, a plant, a bacterium, or a colony...

9 November 2009
Social behaviors revealed by finger length
Finger length ratio is a reliable predictor of how an animal will behave socially, say scientists who have been running the tape-measure over groups of primates...

6 November 2009
Gay or straight, the rules of attraction don't change
New experiments suggest that regardless of sexual orientation, men's brains are wired for attraction to sexually dimorphic faces - those with facial features that are most synonymous with their gender...

5 November 2009
Midwest still shakin' all over - 200 years later
Seismologists now believe that the majority of modern earthquakes in the Midwest United States are merely aftershocks of a big quake that occurred two centuries ago...

4 November 2009
New insights into the evolution of human complexity
A fascinating new study of thousands of genes and the proteins they encode shows that human beings are biologically complex, at least in part, because of the way humans evolved to cope with redundancies arising from duplicate genes...

3 November 2009
Nutrients from animal carcasses a missing piece of biodiversity jigsaw
A new study demonstrates an unforeseen link between the hunting behavior of wolves and biochemical hot spots on the landscape that provide vital nutrients for plantlife...

2 November 2009
Beetles reveal ecological speciation in action
Tiny leaf beetles that flit among the maple and willow trees in Vermont are providing scientists with some of the clearest evidence yet that environmental factors play a major role in the formation of new species...

29 October 2009
Bad driving may be genetic
Scientists have found that people with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it. Disturbingly, about 30 percent of the population has the variant...

27 October 2009
Mole rat's cancer-proofing gene revealed
Despite a three decade lifespan that should provide ample time for cells to grow cancerous, naked mole rats have never been known to suffer cancerous tumors of any kind - and now University of Rochester scientists think they know why...

26 October 2009
Cleanliness next to goodliness
Experiments involving fairness and generosity showed that people in rooms which had been freshly scented with a cleaning product exhibited a dramatic improvement in ethical behavior. Such ethic-promoting scents, say the researchers, could have significant application in workplaces and retail environments...

23 October 2009
Brain can "tidy-up" nanojunk, say Swedish boffins
Concerns about the biological safety of nanotechnology are being voiced by the medical community, but Swedish researchers say that their experiments with rats show that the brain can effectively deal with any bits of nanowaste that might find their way there...

22 October 2009
Male fertility impacted by stress in the womb
A surprising new study has found that exposure to a combination of excess stress hormones and chemicals while in the womb can affect a man's fertility in later life...

21 October 2009
High protein diet shrinks brain
Reported in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, a study by Alzheimer's researchers has unexpectedly found that a high protein diet, such as the Atkins diet, can lead to a smaller brain...

20 October 2009
Toxin producing algae key to mass extinctions, claims new study
Algae, rather than asteroids, were the key to the end of the dinosaurs, claims a new study that notes that current environmental conditions show a significant similarity to the periods in the past when mass extinctions occurred...

19 October 2009
Fish vision evolution observed at molecular level
Researchers have identified the first fish known to have switched from ultraviolet vision to violet vision (the ability to see blue light). The discovery links molecular evolution to functional changes in the organism and the environmental factors that drive those changes...

16 October 2009
False memories implanted into flies
By directly manipulating the activity of individual neurons, scientists have given flies memories of a bad experience they never really had...

15 October 2009
Nanotronics within reach with creation of molecule-sized diode
Diodes are critical components in electronic circuits and US researchers have now found a way to create them the size of a single molecule...

14 October 2009
Uncanny valley response observed in monkeys
The uncanny valley, a phrase that describes the disquieting feeling that occurs when viewers look at (almost) realistic human-like animated characters or androids, has now been observed in monkeys...

12 October 2009
"Catastrophic decline" in freshwater biodiversity
Mismanagement and growing needs for water are causing freshwater ecosystems to collapse, making freshwater species the most threatened on Earth with extinction rates 4 to 6 times higher than their terrestrial and marine cousins...

8 October 2009
Unnatural selection: Courtesy of The Pill
Hormonal contraceptive methods may be having an underappreciated impact on a woman's ability to choose, compete for and retain her preferred mate...

7 October 2009
Honey, I shrunk the earthworm
The ancient relatives of modern dung beetles and earthworms were reduced in size by as much as 50 percent during the Earth's last warming period, creating new concerns for scientists already worried about the effects of climbing temperatures and dwindling rainfall on global agriculture...

6 October 2009
Pygmy puberty put under the microscope
A new hypothesis regarding evolutionary adaption in pygmies contends that their small body size is a side effect of early sexual maturity, where the body's resources are allocated to reproduction rather than growth...

5 October 2009
Booze a lifesaver
Research into the survival of trauma patients suggests that alcohol consumption may have a protective effect against death by changing the body's chemical response to injury...

2 October 2009
Loss of top predators causing widespread ecosystem disruption
The decimation of "apex" predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller "mesopredators" that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions...

1 October 2009
San Andreas Fault weakened by Sumatran quake
Seismologists say the 2004 earthquake that triggered tsunamis throughout the Indian Ocean weakened California's San Andreas Fault, suggesting that large earthquakes can weaken fault zones worldwide and may trigger periods of increased global seismic activity...

30 September 2009
Young adults can outgrow bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder (manic-depression) has traditionally been thought of as a lifelong disorder, but researchers have found evidence that nearly half of those diagnosed between the ages of 18 and 25 may outgrow the disorder by the time they reach 30...

29 September 2009
More evidence linking testicular cancer to chemicals in breast milk
High levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals have been found in breast milk in a country with one of the world's highest rates of male reproductive problems...

28 September 2009
Exciton-based circuitry promises leap in computer speed
Physicists have successfully created super-fast integrated circuits using "excitons" - pairs of negatively charged electrons and positively charged "holes"...

25 September 2009
Boffins ponder moon-water formation
There are potentially two types of water on the moon: exogenic, meaning water from outside sources, such as comets striking the moon's surface, and endogenic, meaning water that originates on the moon. Scientists suspect that the water that was recently revealed on the moon's surface is endogenic. Now, they are devising theories for how it formed...

24 September 2009
New doomsday map shows planet's dire state
"The threats [to the planet] are so enormous that it is too late to be a pessimist," say an international group of scientists who have been mapping the scale of human activities that impact Earth's biophysical thresholds...

23 September 2009
Frog communities undergoing "McDonaldization"
Under pressure from a fungal disease that has been labeled an "extinction filter" by researchers, frog communities in South America are undergoing "a vast homogenization" that is leaving behind impoverished communities that increasingly resemble one another...

22 September 2009
Stem cell researchers barking up the wrong tree, says prof
Stem cell behaviors naturally emerge as a consequence of basic engineering principles of feedback control, argues a biologist who believes that understanding the precise nature of stem cells requires an intimate knowledge of the systems relationships and dynamics at work, rather than the molecular signatures and simple gene regulatory circuits so far detailed by researchers...

21 September 2009
New explanation for gamma ray bursts
The traditional model for gamma ray bursts involves super-hot plasma that surrounds a black hole, but a new theory suggests that the jets come directly from rampant black holes in the process of devouring stars...

18 September 2009
Camera network plots meteorite landings
A network of cameras in the Nullarbor Desert in Western Australia has allowed researchers to track the fiery atmospheric entry of a meteorite and then compute the object's landing point and origin...

17 September 2009
Study links penis size to general health
An Australian study into penis size and body image found that men with a larger-than-average penis had higher self esteem and better general health...

16 September 2009
Surreal experiences boost brain power
Psychologists have found that exposure to surrealism, by say, reading a book by Franz Kafka or watching a film by director David Lynch, enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee some of the learning functions in the brain...

15 September 2009
Showerheads delivering a pathogen payload
Analyzing 50 showerheads from around the US, researchers found that a third of them harbored slimy biofilms of Mycobacterium avium at more than 100 times the concentrations found in municipal water supplies. M. avium is linked to pulmonary disease and can cause serious conditions in people with compromised immune systems...

14 September 2009
New study shows intimate relationship between ice caps and CO₂ levels
Climate scientists say the link between declining CO₂ levels in the Earth's atmosphere and the formation of the Antarctic ice caps some 34 million years ago has been confirmed for the first time...

11 September 2009
Y chromosome not such a dud
It was believed that the X and Y chromosomes - that define the sexes - did not communicate at all, but UK researchers have shown that exchanges of DNA do occur between the X and Y...

10 September 2009
Mind-reading through the eyes
Scientists say they may be able to glean information about stored memories and past events by tracking a subject's eye movements, even when the subject is unable - or unwilling - to describe what they remember...

9 September 2009
Gecko's tail has a mind of its own
Geckos will shed their tails as a decoy for predators, but little is known about what controls the complex movements of the tail once it separates from the lizard's body. Now, a new study shows that the signals responsible for the movements of the detached tail begin in a "control center" at the very end of the tail...

8 September 2009
Compelling new evidence for prostate cancer virus
A type of virus known to cause leukemia and sarcomas in animals has been found for the first time in malignant human prostate cancer cells. The finding could have important implications for the development of a vaccine to block infection by the virus and thus prevent the development of prostate cancer...

7 September 2009
Far out: measuring GDP from orbit
Measuring economic growth in developing countries is a tricky business, but Brown University economists believe the accuracy of GDP estimates might be improved by using images of nighttime lights as seen from space...

4 September 2009
Y chromosome makes sex disorders a "roulette game," say researchers
The human Y chromosome (the male chromosome) is sometimes referred to as a "hall of mirrors" as the genes essential for sperm production are encoded in long stretches of mirror-image sequence. But a new report reveals a considerable downside to this structure: it can lead to a bewildering array of sex disorders, from sperm failure to sex reversal to Turner syndrome...

3 September 2009
Those blinded by brain injury may still "see"
Researchers say they have compelling evidence for the existence of ancient visual pathways in the brain that bypass the main visual areas that allow us to "see" and instead directly influence the movements of our limbs to enable obstacle avoidance...

2 September 2009
Monkey music a hit
Music is one of the surest ways to influence human emotion, however non-human primates scarcely respond to our music, and instead prefer silence. But researchers have found that monkeys will respond to “monkey music,” tunes composed using the sonic attributes of actual monkey calls...

1 September 2009
PSA test blamed for massive overdiagnosis of prostate cancer
Prostate-antigen screening (PSA) has resulted in over 1 million additional men being diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer – but most of these were likely overdiagnosed and should not have been treated, researchers say...

31 August 2009
Nano-scale plasmon laser breaks size barrier
A new milestone in laser physics has been reached with the creation of the world's smallest semiconductor laser, capable of generating coherent visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule...

28 August 2009
Ant species goes female-only
It was thought that all social insect species could produce, when needed, a crop of males who would go forth and fertilize new queens, but researchers now say the ant Mycocepurus smithii reproduces without fertilization and males of the species are nonexistent...

27 August 2009
Unique tree could help feed Africa
A type of acacia tree with an unusual growth habit - unlike virtually all other trees - holds particular promise for farmers in Africa as a free source of nitrogen for their soils that could last generations...

26 August 2009
Obesity linked to brain shrinkage, scans show
Neurologists have compared the brains of people who were obese, overweight, and of normal weight and found that the obese subjects had 8 percent less brain tissue than people of normal weight, while overweight people had 4 percent less...

25 August 2009
The evolutionary benefits of crying
Crying is known to be a symptom of pain or stress, but an evolutionary biologist believes that tears are also an evolution-based mechanism to bring people closer together and make interpersonal relationships stronger...

24 August 2009
Boffins ponder DIY black hole
Dartmouth College researchers have proposed a new way of creating a reproduction black hole in the laboratory, albeit on a much-tinier scale than their celestial counterparts...

21 August 2009
Appendix redux
Charles Darwin was wrong: the appendix is much more than an evolutionary remnant. Not only does it appear in nature much more frequently than previously acknowledged, but it has been around much longer than anyone had suspected...

20 August 2009
Decomposing plastic refuse releasing BPA into oceans
Plastic waste in the ocean isn't just unsightly and a danger to marine animals. Scientists have now found that certain plastics breakdown rapidly in the ocean, releasing a heady cocktail of toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A which is known to interfere with mammalian reproductive systems...

19 August 2009
Social network maps infectious marsupial cancer
A new study into the socializing habits of Tasmanian devils has produced an intricate social network of devil relationships, revealing how the unique infectious cancer known as devil facial tumor disease spreads through a population...

18 August 2009
Asian food crisis looms
Asia's food demand is expected to double by 2050, requiring increases in land and irrigation that are simply not possible, finds a new report...

17 August 2009
Recording studios may morph into museums
The impact of computing and the Internet on recorded music sales is well documented, but one British researcher has been looking at the other side of the coin – the impact of new technology on recording studios, businesses which are now teetering on the edge of irrelevance and bankruptcy...

14 August 2009
Potent pathogen cocktail found in deserted hives
Honeybees in colonies affected by colony collapse disorder (CCD) have higher levels of pathogens than their non-affected counterparts, but no individual pathogen can be singled out as the cause of CCD, according to a new international study...

13 August 2009
Herbals ineffective in treating menopausal symptoms
Commonly used botanicals black cohosh and red clover have been found to not have any significant effect on hot flashes or cognitive function in menopausal women...

12 August 2009
The strange case of the zombie ants
A fungal parasite that attacks carpenter ants is able to control them and force them into dying in just the right spot for the fungus to grow and reproduce...

11 August 2009
"Flying frog" discovered in Eastern Himalayas
More than 300 new species, including a flying frog and a 100 million-year old gecko, have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas, a biological treasure trove that scientists say is now threatened by climate change...

7 August 2009
T-rex a baby killer
The cinematic cliché of two huge dinosaurs battling to the death may be nothing but fantasy if German scientists are correct in their assessment that large carnivorous dinosaurs were opportunistic hunters who picked on much smaller prey...

6 August 2009
Bioethanol's water requirements underestimated
At a time when water supplies are scarce in many parts of the world, scientists are reporting that production of bioethanol - regarded by many as the clean-burning fuel of the future - may consume up to three times more water than previously thought...

4 August 2009
Unique DNA signature discovered in sperm
Scientists have found that sperm carry a DNA signature that can only be recognized by an egg from the same species, explaining why some otherwise healthy men produce sperm that is sterile, and also clarifying how different species evolve and retain their own identity...

3 August 2009
Dream therapy set for a revival
European researchers say that similarities in brain activity during lucid dreaming and psychosis indicate that previously discredited dream therapy could play a useful role in treating psychiatric conditions...

31 July 2009
UK boffins split electron
Physicists from the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham have shown that electrons, which are indivisible in isolation, can divide into two new particles called spinons and a holons when crowded into in a narrow wire...

30 July 2009
Jellyfish significant contributors to large-scale ocean mixing
Climate change scientists may need to rethink the factors governing the interaction of the world's oceans, thanks to new findings that show the global power input from swimming creatures such as jellyfish is as much as a trillion watts of energy, comparable to that of wind and tidal forces...

29 July 2009
Deep oil reserves created without organic matter?
Counter to traditional wisdom, experiments involving basic molecules subjected to extreme heat and pressure suggest that reserves of oil and gas could exist deep in the Earth and that their creation did not require organic matter...

27 July 2009
Ants trump humans in decision-making
US researchers have shown that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than humans. The scientists explain that it is not the case of humans being "stupider" than ants, rather that humans often make irrational choices when faced with challenging decisions...

24 July 2009
Germans getting horny over natural disasters
German researchers have applied for a patent covering a technology which allows the horns of thousands of parked cars to be activated simultaneously in case of an impending disaster...

23 July 2009
Predator-prey relationships a key driver in nature's synchronicity
Synchronicity in nature is seen in beating hearts and the simultaneous rise and fall of populations across vast reaches. Now, scientists have identified that predator-prey interactions are the "conductors" of this synchronicity in living organisms...

22 July 2009
Jupiter pummeled
Something slammed into Jupiter over the weekend, creating a massive bruise that was picked up by an amateur Australian astronomer on Sunday. Now, University of California astronomers have used the Keck II telescope in Hawaii to better capture an image of the moon-sized blemish...

21 July 2009
Genetics linked to placebo response
Placebos - sugar pills designed to represent "no treatment" in a clinical treatment study - work nearly as well as the actual medication for some people. Why this should be so remains a mystery, but researchers at UCLA believe they have found a possible explanation: genetics...

20 July 2009
BPA found to have "dramatic" effect on adult hormone levels
As well as its already documented effects on fetuses in the womb, widely used chemical BPA has been found to retard the growth of follicles of adult mice and significantly alter their production of steroid hormones...

17 July 2009
Male chromosome facing extinction
The male sex chromosome, the Y chromosome, is evolving at a much more rapid pace than the X chromosome, and researchers say that it is losing genes at a rate that eventually could lead to the Y chromosome's complete disappearance...

16 July 2009
Short-term memory observed in 30-week-old fetuses
In a new study from the Netherlands, scientists have found evidence of short-term memory in fetuses at 30 weeks...

15 July 2009
Global warming estimates "fundamentally wrong," contends new study
No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect...

14 July 2009
The repulsive side of light
A team of Yale scientists has discovered a "repulsive" light force that can be used to control tiny components, meaning future nanodevices could be manipulated by light rather than electricity...

13 July 2009
Neptune discovered by Galileo?
An Australian physicist has been studying cryptic annotations in Galileo's notebooks and believes the Italian astronomer may have identified the planet Neptune in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date...

10 July 2009
Ugly males more fertile
Attractive males release fewer sperm per mating to increase the odds of producing offspring across a range of females, suggesting that matings with attractive males may be less fruitful than those with unattractive ones...

9 July 2009
Anti-fungal shows dramatic anti-aging effects
Rapamycin, an anti-fungal compound first discovered in the soil of Easter Island, has been found to extend the expected lifespan of middle-aged mice by 28 - 38 percent...

7 July 2009
The joy of sex - courtesy of parasites
Why do we have sex? From an evolutionary perspective, the answer is not as obvious as you might think. And now, a new study suggests that sex may have evolved mainly as a defense against parasites...

6 July 2009
Processed foods linked to Alzheimer's and diabetes
A new study by US researchers has found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our environment and food with increased deaths from diseases; including Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's...

3 July 2009
Fermi Telescope reveals new type of pulsar
A new class of pulsars detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is solving the mystery of previously unidentified radio-quiet gamma-ray sources...

1 July 2009
Daily sex boosts male fertility
Fertility experts say that although frequent ejaculation decreases semen volume and sperm concentrations, it significantly increases sperm motility and reduces DNA damage...

30 June 2009
Laser-lens promises attosecond shutter-speeds
A virtual lens created by two counterpropagating laser beams could theoretically deliver incredibly fast shutter speeds, making the real-time observation of matter at the molecular level a real possibility...

29 June 2009
BPA exposure during pregnancy alters offspring's DNA
In animal studies, exposure to BPA (a common chemical found in many plastic household items) during pregnancy is known to cause fertility defects in the offspring, and now researchers have found out how those defects occur...

26 June 2009
Beauty in the eye of the beholder? Only for women
Hot or not? Men agree on the answer but women don’t. So says a new study that found there is much more consensus among men about whom they find attractive than there is among women...

25 June 2009
Cost of genotyping plunges thanks to Sudoku logic
Sudoku, the math-based game that took the world by storm, may now be poised to revolutionize the fast-changing world of genome sequencing and the field of medical genetics...

24 June 2009
Researchers tickled by feathers' prodigious hydrogen storage capabilities
Carbonized chicken feather fibers are as efficient at storing hydrogen as carbon nanotubes and would add only $200 to the cost of a hydrogen powered car compared to nanotube storage which would add more than $5M...

23 June 2009
Brain treats tools as body parts
When we use a tool - even for just a few minutes - it changes the way our brain represents the size of our body, with the tool becoming an integrated component of our body schema...

22 June 2009
Combination approach could eradicate HIV from body
Medications that target viral replication of HIV throughout the body, in combination with drugs that prevent infected memory T-cells from dividing, could eliminate the reservoirs of HIV that stubbornly persist within the body, eventually leaving it disease-free...

19 June 2009
New computational methodology could revolutionize evolutionary biology
Detailed, accurate evolutionary trees that reveal the relatedness of living things can now be determined much faster and for thousands of species with the help of a novel computing method...

18 June 2009
Bacteria found to exhibit anticipatory behavior
Bacteria can anticipate future events and prepare for them, according to new research that explores how a microorganism's genetic networks are hard-wired to "foresee" what comes next in a sequence of events...

17 June 2009
Mad fish disease could threaten humans
Experts are questioning the safety of eating farmed fish that are fed byproducts rendered from cows...

16 June 2009
Novel material could revolutionize electronics
At room temperatures, bismuth telluride - which can be fabricated using existing semiconductor technologies - behaves as a topological insulator, allowing electrons on its surface to travel with no loss of energy...

15 June 2009
Laptop fertility warning
Father's Day has prompted one fertility expert to issue a fresh warning to men who use their laptop computers on, er, their laps. She says that most men underestimate the impact that the heat from laptops can have on sperm production...

12 June 2009
Change in monsoon patterns likely
Climate change seems likely to shift seasonal monsoons to the south, causing more rain to fall over the oceans than in the Earth's tropical regions, leading to a dramatic drop in global vegetation growth...

11 June 2009
Influenza during pregnancy linked to schizophrenia
When mothers contract influenza during their pregnancy, it may increase the risk for schizophrenia in their offspring...

10 June 2009
The strange case of the shrinking star
Betelgeuse, the bright red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, has shrunk by more than 15 percent over the past 15 years, and astronomers aren't sure why...

9 June 2009
Genetic regions linked to animal tameness identified
An international team of scientists have identified the regions of genetic code that are responsible for animal tameness, a discovery that could lead to the breeding of domesticated animals of species once believed to be untamable...

8 June 2009
Parasite puzzle: scientists mull coextinction conundrum
Climate change and environmental degradation will make extinctions a sure-bet in the future; but scientists are still struggling to come to grips with what happens to a species' parasites when the host disappears. One worrying scenario predicts rapidly escalating numbers of pathogens and parasites affecting both humans and our domesticated animals...

5 June 2009
Did population density create modern humans?
A controversial new study argues that increasing population density, rather than growth in the power of the human brain, is what catalyzed the emergence of modern human behavior...

4 June 2009
Biologically inspired, ultra-broadband chip could enable "cognitive" radio
A radio chip modeled on the human inner ear can efficiently process a broad spectrum of signals including cell phone, wireless Internet, radio and television; an achievement that could usher in what the developers call "cognitive" radio...

3 June 2009
Ethanol production degrading soil productivity
Crop residues are viewed as a low cost and readily available source of material for ethanol production. But these residues are not simply a waste material as they play a pivotal role in sustaining levels of organic matter in soil...

2 June 2009
Incandescent light bulbs: not quite down and out
It may not be game-over for incandescent bulbs after all. US researchers report vast improvements in energy efficiency and brightness by briefly exposing an ordinary bulb to an extremely bright laser which creates nano-scale structures on the bulb's tungsten filament...

29 May 2009
Breakthrough in controlling superposition quantum states
Superposition states are a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics and for the first time they have been controllably created with light...

28 May 2009
Tantalizing glimpse of macroscopic quantum effects
The weird laws of quantum mechanics govern how molecules, atoms and smaller particles behave, but quantum phenomena sometimes “leak up” to macroscopic scales, researchers have found...

27 May 2009
Dire outlook for shellfish in a high CO2 world
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide contributing to the acidification of the planet's oceans may push some shellfish populations to extinction...

20 May 2009
Earth to get hotter sooner
New modeling on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get this century shows that without rapid policy change the problem will be twice as severe as previously estimated - and could be even worse...

19 May 2009
Cancer drug Rituxan linked to brain virus
Rituximab (marketed as Rituxan), a drug that is used to treat cancer as well as arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis, has been linked to a virus known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalitis (PML) that eats away the brain's white matter...

18 May 2009
Cloud-seeding microorganisms go under the microscope
A new study is the first to yield direct data on how bacteria, fungal spores and plant material influence cloud formation at high altitudes...

15 May 2009
Melting threat from ice sheet overstated?
The total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would not raise global sea levels as high as predicted contends a new study, but the effects would be most strongly felt in coastal areas of the United States...

14 May 2009
Back to the drawing board for North Atlantic circulation
The conveyor belt paradigm that is used to describe the North Atlantic Ocean's circulation has it that the Gulf Stream-warmed ocean releases heat to the atmosphere in the northern North Atlantic, leaving ocean water colder and denser as it moves north. But this is a vast oversimplification, say oceanographers...

13 May 2009
Superbugs thriving in wastewater treatment plants
In the first study of its kind, Michigan researchers have established that wastewater treatment plants are providing a perfect environment for the emergence of antibiotic-resistant superbugs that eventually end up in neighboring streams and lakes...

12 May 2009
Men and women equal? Not when it comes to the immune system
Women have a more powerful immune system than men thanks to the production of estrogen that amplifies the body's innate inflammatory response against bacterial pathogens...

11 May 2009
Entanglement of photon detected across four locations
Caltech scientists have shown how entanglement in the form of beams of light simultaneously propagating along four distinct paths can be detected with a surprisingly small number of measurements...

6 May 2009
Modified Newtonian dynamic could do away with dark matter
The number of physicists questioning the existence of dark matter has been increasing for some time now. And while competing theories of gravitation have been developed independent of dark matter, they conflict with Newton's theory of gravitation. Now, some physicists are suggesting that Newton might be wrong...

5 May 2009
Laissez faire use of DDT concerns experts
DDT's use to combat malaria was endorsed in 2006 by the World Health Organization and the organochlorine pesticide is now sprayed inside buildings and homes throughout the developing world. But the human health impacts of DDT exposure at such high levels are unknown, say epidemiologists...

4 May 2009
Mechanism behind caffeine withdrawal revealed
Scientists have been studying brain electrical activity and blood flow to examine what was taking place physiologically during acute caffeine abstinence, including the likely mechanism underlying the common "caffeine withdrawal headache"...

1 May 2009
Novel method to induce immunity to chlamydia
Scientists have come up with a unique nanoparticle based method for inducing immunity to infection by chlamydia, work that may accelerate progress toward the development of a vaccine...

30 April 2009
Marriages fixed with oxytocin
Oxytocin - the love hormone - has been found to foster improved communication and lower stress levels in couples engaged in conflict resolution...

29 April 2009
Constructal law unifies animate and inanimate designs of nature
A Duke University engineer believes that he has now unified both the biological and geophysical principles of nature's design through the constructal law, which can also be viewed as the physics of evolution...

28 April 2009
Lost world... found?
New evidence suggests that dinosaur bones found in the San Juan Basin date from after the supposed dino-doomsday, and that dinosaurs may have survived in what is now New Mexico and Colorado for up to half-a-million years...

27 April 2009
Nano-mechanical sensors "wired" using photonics
Yale researchers have demonstrated silicon-based nano-cantilevers, smaller than the wavelength of light, that operate on photonic principles eliminating the need for electric transducers and expensive laser setups...

24 April 2009
Fires responsible for 20% of CO2 emissions
Fires are a significant contributor to climate change, according to a report published in the journal Science, creating up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide...

23 April 2009
Scientists mull polarized light tell-tales from alien life
Like life on Earth, extraterrestrial life should create an environment with a large amount of molecules that favor one kind of handedness (chirality), and now, scientists believe we may be able to identify life-harboring planets by looking for left- (or right-) handed reflected light from these planets...

21 April 2009
Beer-goggles put to the test
British researchers have been surveying people in bars and cafes by asking them to rate the attractiveness of underage and mature females with and without makeup...

20 April 2009
Male impotence drugs may benefit some women
The main drugs used to treat male impotence may also benefit around half of the women who report sexual dysfunction, suggesting that the medical community should perhaps take a second look at their potential as a viable treatment for women...

17 April 2009
New nucleotide could revolutionize field of epigenetics
The identification of a sixth nucleotide in the mammalian DNA code suggests a previously unknown layer of complexity exists between our basic genetic blueprints and the creatures that we grow into...

16 April 2009
Folk-medicine herbal alkaloid synthesized
The moss Lycopodium serratum is a creeping, flowerless plant containing a potent brew of alkaloids that have attracted scientific interest thanks to their possible anti-cancer properties. Until now, however, analyzing the medicinal properties of these chemicals has been next to impossible...

15 April 2009
Vaccine developed for E. coli diarrheal diseases
A researcher from Michigan State University has developed a working vaccine for a strain of E. coli that kills up to 3 million children each year in the developing world...

14 April 2009
Tweet this: Rapid-fire media confuses our moral compass
A new study raises important questions about the emotional cost - particularly for the developing brain - of our increasingly heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets obtained through television, online feeds and social networks such as Twitter...

9 April 2009
Meat market for chimps
Newly documented observations of male and female chimps exchanging meat for mating access helps to explain how female chimps choose their mating partners and why male chimps frequently share meat with females...

8 April 2009
A genetic basis for love at first sight
A multinational team of researchers has discovered that at the genetic level, some males and females are more compatible than others, and that this compatibility plays important roles in mate selection and mating outcomes...

7 April 2009
The neurobiology of wisdom
A new meta-study just completed by University of California neurologists sought to determine if specific brain circuits and pathways might be responsible for wisdom - once the sole province of religion and philosophy. The researchers argue that there may indeed be a basis in neurobiology for wisdom's most universal traits...

6 April 2009
Racetrack computer memory "within 10 years," say researchers
A new kind of computer memory, called "racetrack" memory, looks set to replace the hard disk as the standard method of storing information on home computers. It promises to be 100 times cheaper than flash memory and has no moving parts – instead, it is the information which moves...

3 April 2009
Battery built from GM viruses
Researchers have genetically engineered viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. The new virus-produced batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as the state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars...

1 April 2009
Disinfectant by-products create toxic cocktail
The disinfection of water stands out as possibly the most significant public health achievement, but a recent study shows that the chemicals used to purify the water we drink and use in swimming pools react with organic material in the water yielding a surprisingly toxic brew...

31 March 2009
Season of conception linked to birth defect risk
Birth defect rates in the United States are highest for women conceiving in the spring and summer – the time when pesticide levels in surface water across the country reach their peak...

30 March 2009
Magnets used to clean up bloodstream
Sepsis, a potentially lethal disease caused by a systemic microbial infection that spreads via the bloodstream, is responsible for more than 200,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone. Existing treatments can be ineffective but researchers have come up with a novel first line of defense - the use of magnetism to quickly remove pathogens from the blood...

27 March 2009
Estrogen contamination in bottled water "just the tip of the iceberg," say scientists
The notion that bottled mineral water is clean and without contamination is being challenged by new research that has identified significant levels of estrogen leaching from plastic bottles into the water...

26 March 2009
Compelling new evidence for benefits of circumcision
American and Ugandan scientists working in Africa have found that adult male circumcision significantly decreases infection rates for the two most common sexually transmitted infections – herpes and the human papillomavirus (the virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts)...

25 March 2009
Redefining DNA's structure for fun and profit
In a bold rewrite of the recipe for life, scientists have designed a new type of DNA with 12 chemical letters instead of the usual four. This artificial genetic system is already helping to usher in the era of personalized medicine for millions of patients with HIV, hepatitis and other diseases and may one day help produce a self-sustaining molecule capable of Darwinian evolution and reproduction...

24 March 2009
Cold fusion a hot topic – again
In a sign of science's reinvigorated quest for new energy sources, the American Chemical Society's annual shindig features no less than 30 papers on the topic of cold fusion - or Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions as it is now known - with some of the presenters saying their findings are "very significant"...

23 March 2009
Carbohydrate synthesizer opens door to new field of medicine
German scientists have reported a major advance toward opening the doors of a carbohydrate-based medicine chest for the 21st Century. Much more than just bread and pasta, these carbohydrates may form the basis of revolutionary new vaccines and drugs to battle malaria, HIV, and a plethora of other diseases...

20 March 2009
Mothers' exposure to insecticide linked to offsprings' obesity
Exposure in the womb to the chemical DDE (a breakdown product of DDT, the insecticide commonly used up until the 1970s) may play a role in the obesity epidemic in women...

19 March 2009
New clues in understanding face perception
Humans excel at recognizing faces but neuroscience doesn't know how we accomplish it. Now, in an effort to explain our success in this area, researchers are taking a closer look at how and why we fail at face recognition. Specifically, our impaired ability to recognize faces in photographic negatives...

18 March 2009
Extraterrestrial amino acids left-handed
NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites say that the extraterrestrial biological molecules brought to Earth by meteorite impacts could help explain why the chemistry of life on Earth is left-handed...

17 March 2009
Guitarists' brains synchronized
When guitarists play along together it isn't just their instruments that are in time - their brain waves are too, say researchers who have been analyzing EEG readouts from pairs of guitarists...

16 March 2009
New antibiotics solve resistance problem
Researchers are developing a new generation of antibiotic compounds that work by disrupting bacterial communication, thus avoiding the problem of bacterial resistance. So far, the new compounds have been shown to work against two of the main food contaminant microbes that together cause 110,000 illnesses and 50 deaths in the US each year...

12 March 2009
"Spin battery" provides novel electrical storage
Researchers have developed a "spin battery," a battery that is charged by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction...

11 March 2009
Salt: nature's antidepressant
Most people consume far too much salt and an American researcher thinks we might crave it because it puts us in a better mood...

10 March 2009
Physicists observe single top-quark
Fermilab scientists have observed particle collisions that produce single top quarks. The result confirms important parameters of particle physics, such as the total number of quarks, and has significance for the ongoing search for the Higgs boson...

9 March 2009
More evidence for obesity-infertility link
Obese women appear to undergo alterations in their ovaries which might be responsible for an egg's inability to make an embryo, according to a new study...

6 March 2009
Testosterone patch to boost women's sex drive gets thumbs-down
Intrinsa, a recently licensed testosterone patch designed to pep up a woman's flagging sex drive after womb and ovary removal, may not work...

5 March 2009
Dead Sea dying?
The water levels in the Dead Sea are dropping at an alarming rate with serious environmental consequences, say German researchers...

4 March 2009
Musicians’ brains optimized to identify emotion
In research that may lead to new therapies for children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, researchers have found the first biological evidence that musical training enhances an individual’s ability to recognize emotion in speech...

3 March 2009
"Ethanol subsidies a poor investment economically and environmentally," study finds
To avoid creating greenhouse gases, it makes more sense to leave land unfarmed in conservation reserves than to plow it up for corn to make biofuel, finds a new Duke University-led study...

3 March 2009
Truth-in-spam-shock: penis enlargement possible
Contrary to conventional medical dogma, a new European study has found that the mechanical devices known as penile extenders do increase the length of the human penis...

2 March 2009
Vege-based drugs inhibit melanoma
Tests on mice suggest that compounds extracted from green vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage could be used as potent weapons against melanoma. The Penn State College of Medicine cancer researchers behind the discovery say that when combined with selenium, the compounds target tumors more safely and effectively than conventional therapy...

27 February 2009
CO2 behind prehistoric global cooling
Ice in Antarctica appeared suddenly (in geologic terms) about 35 million years ago, after more than 100 million years of being ice-free. Scientists have long puzzled over what triggered the formation of Antarctica's massive ice-sheets, and they now believe they know the answer...

26 February 2009
Simplicity of brain's odor encoding revealed
A new theory of how animals smell may be in the offing as scientists reveal that the brain encodes the complex patterns of odors using surprisingly little neural machinery...

24 February 2009
Biodiverse regions are hotspots for war
Over 80 percent of the world's major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth...

18 February 2009
Scientists cast doubt on role of free radicals in aging
For nearly half a century, the prevailing dogma as to why we get old has been tied to what is called oxidative stress, where free radicals and ions build up and damage cells. But new research is calling the entire oxidative stress theory into question. In fact, the latest experimental results show that some organisms actually live longer when their ability to clean themselves of this toxic molecule buildup is partially disabled...

17 February 2009
Penguin populations plummeting
Changing weather patterns, over-fishing, pollution and other factors have conspired to drive penguin populations into a precipitous decline, according to long-term research conducted by a naturalist at the Wildlife Conservation Society...

16 February 2009
Dire new warning on climate from IPCC scientist
Previously unconsidered positive feedbacks in the climate system (such as the release of arctic permafrost) have led a Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist to warn that "as a society we are facing a climate crisis that is larger and harder to deal with than any of us thought..."

13 February 2009
More evidence for herpes conferring anti-bacterial effect
A new study by scientists at the Trudeau Institute has confirmed intriguing findings from earlier research that showed that mice infected with certain forms of the herpes virus are resistant to infection with bacterial pathogens...

12 February 2009
Chromosome study challenges infidelity dogma
Our surnames and genetic information are often strongly connected, according to the authors of a new study that directly challenges the often quoted one-in-ten figure for children born through infidelity...

11 February 2009
Birth defects linked to obesity during pregnancy
Women who are obese during pregnancy are putting their child at risk of birth defects such as spina bifida, heart defects, cleft palate, brain defects and gastrointestinal defects, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association...

9 February 2009
Goodbye Mr Nice Guy
Just in time for Valentine's Day, researchers have turned up some new answers to the age-old question of what we want in our partners. It turns out that "chastity" is unimportant and men are more interested in an educated woman who is a good financial prospect; and women are more interested in a man who wants a family and less picky about whether he's a "nice guy"...

6 February 2009
Future sea level rise underestimated
If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, as many experts believe it will because of global warming, the resulting sea level rise will be significantly higher than is currently projected, a new study has found...

5 February 2009
Primitive whales gave birth on land
A pair of ancient whale fossils - a pregnant female and a male of the same species - reveals how these primitive ancestors of today's whales gave birth and provides new insights into how whales made the transition from land to water...

4 February 2009
"Holographic noise" may herald new era in physics
Physicists at the Centre for Gravitational Physics in Germany are in a lather over what appears to be "holographic noise," minute quantum convolutions of space-time that may prove we exist in a holographic universe...

3 February 2009
New evidence linking marijuana use to brain abnormalities in adolescents
Young people who are heavy users of marijuana are more likely than non-users to have disrupted development in the areas of the brain that are involved in memory, attention, decision-making, language and executive functioning skills...

2 February 2009
Newly discovered non-coding genes control critical disease processes
Researchers have discovered a vast new class of previously unrecognized mammalian genes that do not encode proteins, but instead function as long RNA molecules that play critical roles in both health and disease, including cancer, immune signaling and stem cell biology...

30 January 2009
New evidence for environmental chemicals impacting female fertility
Researchers have found the first evidence that chemicals used in everyday items such as food packaging, pesticides, clothing, upholstery, carpets and personal care products may be associated with infertility in women...

29 January 2009
Fresh concerns about BPA
Common assumptions about the controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) may be wrong, with new research showing that high levels of BPA remain in the body even after fasting for as long as 24 hours. This suggests that BPA exposure may come from non-food sources, or, that BPA is not rapidly metabolized, or both...

28 January 2009
Honeybees show surprising numeracy skills
Honeybees can discriminate between patterns containing two and three dots - without having to count the dots, a skill the researchers believe the bees use to navigate their environment...

27 January 2009
Biologists mull rapid, non-adaptive gene mutations
New research suggests that in addition to natural selection, biased gene conversion (a non-adaptive evolutionary process) appears to have made a significant contribution to human evolution...

23 January 2009
Female companions boost male fertility
Living with a female mouse can extend the reproductive life of a male mouse by as much as 20 percent, according to a study which scientists say has significant implications for the maintenance of male fertility in wildlife, livestock and even human populations...

22 January 2009
Estimate of tobacco-linked cancer deaths doubled
The association between tobacco smoke and cancer deaths - excluding lung cancer - in men has been vastly underestimated, according to a new study. The new analysis links smoking to more than 70 percent of cancer deaths - an effective doubling of the previous estimate of 34 percent...

21 January 2009
Therapy and drugs prove to be effective against body dysmorphia
A new meta-study has found that drug therapy and psychotherapy can effectively treat the condition known as body dysmorphic disorder, where sufferers obsess over exaggerated or imaginary physical defects...

20 January 2009
Paradoxically, pollutants causing Nile fishery to grow dramatically
While many of the world's fisheries are in serious decline, the coastal Mediterranean fishery off the Nile Delta has expanded dramatically since the 1980s, thanks to sewage and fertilizer run-off which has caused an explosion in fish numbers...

19 January 2009
Game theory shows why you can't hurry love
English boffins have developed a mathematical model of the mating game to help explain why courtship is often protracted. The study shows that extended courtship enables a female to gather information about the male and screen him out if he is unsuitable as a mate...

16 January 2009
Researchers show off next generation cloaking device
Duke University engineers have produced a new type of metamaterial cloaking device which is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking in a broad range of frequencies...

15 January 2009
Asymmetrical brain gives up its secrets
Two newly identified proteins are responsible for the tug-of-war between the two sides of the developing human brain that causes it to become asymmetrical, a property that is critical in allowing the two brain hemispheres to specialize and operate more efficiently...

14 January 2009
Meta-review slams herbal remedies for menopausal women
Reviewing a variety of herbal treatments taken by women for menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats, researchers have identified a pervasive lack of clinical evidence to support the use of such remedies...

13 January 2009
Humans reshaping other species at lightning speed
Human activities such as fishing and hunting are having astonishingly broad and swift impacts on the body size and reproductive abilities of fish and other commercially harvested species, potentially jeopardizing the ability of entire populations to recover, according to a new study...

12 January 2009
Knocking on the door of life: self-replicating RNA synthesized
For the first time, scientists have synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves indefinitely without the help of any proteins or other cellular components...

9 January 2009
Newly detected cosmic noise hints at mysterious events in universe's past
Newly detected background radio "noise" that is louder than the combined radio emissions of all of the galaxies in the universe suggests something "new and interesting" must have occurred as galaxies first formed, when the universe was less than half its current age...

8 January 2009
Physicists clock elusive repulsive Casimir force
Researchers have detected and measured, for the first time, a repulsive quantum mechanical force that could be harnessed and tailored for a wide range of novel nanotechnology applications...

7 January 2009
Surprising finding from calorie-weight study
An international study has failed to find supporting evidence for the common belief that the number of calories burned in physical activity is a key factor in rising rates of obesity...

6 January 2009
Central tenet of theory of relativity looks shaky
Physicists have developed a promising new way to identify a possible abnormality in a fundamental building block of Einstein's theory of relativity, which, if confirmed, would disprove that the laws of physics remain the same for any two objects traveling at a constant speed...

5 January 2009
Does religion provide an evolutionary advantage?
Religious people have more self-control than their less religious counterparts, leading to lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, better health behaviors, less depression and longer lives, claims a new meta-study...