The first scoop of soil analyzed by the analytical suite in the belly of NASA's Curiosity rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight. 

The quest for evidence of life on Mars could be more complicated than previously thought due to  perchlorate,, a salt comprised of chlorine and oxygen, that interferes with the techniques used by the Curiosity rover to test for traces of life. The chemical causes the evidence to burn away during the tests.

NASA's Curiosity Rover has sampled a surprising diversity of soils and sediments along a half-kilometer route during its first few months on Mars. And what it has found tells a complex story about the gradual desiccation of the Red Planet.

Perhaps most notable among findings from the ChemCam team is that all of the dust and fine soil contains small amounts of water.

In a series of papers covering the rover's top discoveries during its first three months on Mars, the rover's ChemCam instrument team up with an international cadre of scientists affiliated with the CheMin, APXS, and SAM instruments to describe the planet's seemingly once-volcanic and aquatic history.

Reports of a new hepatitis virus earlier this year were a false alarm, according to U.C. San Francisco researchers who correctly identified the virus as a contaminant present in a type of glassware used in many research labs.

The finding highlights both the promise and peril of today’s powerful “next-generation” lab techniques that are used to track down new agents of disease. 

 IGR J18245-2452, located about 18,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius in a cluster of stars known as M28, is a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform from a radio pulsar into an X-ray pulsar and back again.

The star's capricious behavior appears to be fueled by a nearby companion star and may give new insights into the birth of millisecond pulsars.

New methods are needed to fight the infection Clostridium difficile and better use of antibiotics could be key, according to a new paper.

Clostridium difficile (C.diff) causes severe diarrhoea, cramps and sometimes life-threatening complications, and has traditionally been thought to be transmitted within hospitals from other sick C.diff patients.
 

In a United Kingdom study, the team mapped all cases of Clostridium difficile (C.diff) in Oxfordshire over a three-year period (2008 to 2011) and found that less than one in five cases of the "hospital superbug" were likely to have been caught from other hospital cases of C.diff, where the focus of infection control measures has been.