Harvesting sunlight is old technology for plants but it's a level of efficiency in solar energy we would love to be within a billion years of - artificial photosynthesis is needed if we want to go beyond the energy density of things like combustion engines. 

Some people believe we are in a new Enlightenment, with science making food plentiful and likely to make energy cheap enough to be unnoticeable in the next few decades as well. We share one other thing in common with the 18th century - solar activity.

Scientists have been counting sunspots with small telescopes since 1610 so it was quickly learned that the Sun’s activity increases every eleven years, according to the interval in the growth of the number of darker and colder spots in comparison with the rest of its surface. The more spots that appear, the more luminous the surrounding areas are, and our star shines brighter. 

Personal information taken from social media, blogs, page views and so on are used to detect disease outbreaks, however, does this violate our privacy and trust if people do not consent to it?

Magicians have delighted audiences for centuries with magic tricks. What is little known is that they subtly influence decisions. A master like Apollo Robbins can even tell you what he is going to do and you still won't know he is doing it.

Yet there has been little systematic study of the psychological factors that make magic tricks work. A team of Canadian researchers has combined magic and psychology to demonstrate how certain contextual factors can sway the decisions people make, even though they may feel that they are choosing freely.

Vast ranges of volcanoes hidden under the oceans are presumed by scientists to be the gentle giants of the planet, oozing lava at slow, steady rates along mid-ocean ridges. But a new study shows that they flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years--and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year.

The pulses--apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth's orbit, and to sea levels--may help trigger natural climate swings. Scientists have already speculated that volcanic cycles on land emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide might influence climate; but up to now there was no evidence from submarine volcanoes.

To help people with hormone deficiencies, scientists have developed a potential new therapy based on an unlikely model: immune molecules from cows. Their research, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that human hormones and antibodies can be fused together--mimicking long, stalk-like cow antibodies.

The new study, whose senior authors were Peter Schultz, the Scripps Family Chair Professor at at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), and Feng Wang, a principal investigator at the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), could also provide the foundation for treatments for a range of other diseases.