When chemists want to measure the bonding forces in molecules or other most minuscule forces very accurately, they have to calibrate their measuring instruments (for example the cantilevers, i.e. the measuring tips, of scanning force microscopes). And if it is a matter of comparing the attained results with other results, one must refer to a common basis.

In the case of scanning force microscopes, the nominal values for bending stiffnesses deviate distinctly from the actual values. With the current devices, calibrations of cantilevers are accurate to > 5%. For forces in the nano- and piconewton range one therefore requires more accurate realisations and stable transfer standards.

Researchers from St. Petersburg State University have designed a brandy analyzing device which can distinguish the ‘young’ drink from the seasoned one and even to distinguish among variants of brandy. This is of great help both to manufacturers and analysts on the hunt for counterfeits.

This ‘electronic tongue’ won't replace the cooper just yet but it is suited for routine work. The fun part - drinking - is still up to people.

Cyanide is poison. Detective writers like it. Gold miners like it. The environment; not so much. In the year 2000 cyanide got into the Tisa river and then into the Danube through a small Austrian gold-mining company's efforts using cyanide to extract gold and silver from solutions. Fish, birds and wild animals died and millions of inhabitants in Hungary were deprived of drinking water.

To prevent future occurrences of that kind, Russian researchers from the Krasnoyarsk State University and the Institute of Chemistry and Applied Chemistry have developed an original method for extracting gold and silver from multicomponent solutions.

A team of scientists from the University Paris Descartes has solved the structure of two proteins that allow bacteria to gain resistance to multiple types of antibiotics, according to a report in EMBO reports this month. This work provides new clues as to how bacteria adapt to resist antibiotics and how to design new drugs that counteract this defense mechanism.

Frédéric Dardel and colleagues crystallized both the narrow and broad-spectrum resistance forms of the antibiotic-modifying acetyltransferase enzyme. Their report reveals that the enzyme has a flexible active site that can evolve to accommodate new antibiotics, allowing the bacteria to break them down and render them useless. This explains why this type of enzyme is now carried by many bacteria struggling for survival in the antibiotic age.

What do farmers think about GM crops? They like 'em - they like better crops with fewer pesticides and they feel that government has not listened when it counts so business has filled the void.

A group at the Open University, led by Professor Andy Lane, has taken the first systematic look at what large-scale, commodity farmers – not those mainly involved in organic growing - think about genetically-modified crops.

Lane and his colleagues found that both farmers who have been involved in GM crop trials and those who have not, regard GM as a simple extension of previous plant breeding techniques, such as those which have produced today’s established crop types. They regard GM crops as an innovation which they would assess on its merits. Their real interest is in how GM crops would work in practice and whether they can contribute to the profitability of their farms. The research suggests that these farmers do not think that GM raises any issues of principle, or that it is a matter of right or wrong.

Digital logic, or bits, is the only paradigm for the IT world, and up to now researchers used it almost exclusively to study quantum information processing. But European scientists say that an analog approach is far easier in the quantum world.

Modern computing is digital, a series of 1s and 0s that, once combined, create powerful information processing systems. The system is so simple – on or off, yes or no – that it almost seems dumb. It is that very simplicity that gives digital computing its power. It works very well - but there is a problem. Silicon circuits are getting so small that they will soon be bumping up against a fundamental physical limit.