All materials, from paper to water, reflect some amount of light. Scientists have long envisioned an ideal black material that absorbs all the colors of light while reflecting none. So far they have been unsuccessful in engineering a material with a total reflectance of zero but each advancement eventually boosts the effectiveness and efficiency of solar energy conversion, infrared sensors and other devices.

The total reflectance of conventional black paint is between 5 and 10 percent.

The 1000 Genomes Project, announced today, will involve sequencing the genomes of at least a thousand people from around the world.

Drawing on the expertise of multidisciplinary research teams, the 1000 Genomes Project will develop a new map of the human genome that will provide a view of biomedically relevant DNA variations at a resolution unmatched by current resources.

As with other major human genome reference projects, data from the 1000 Genomes Project will be made swiftly available to the worldwide scientific community through freely accessible public databases.

Any two humans are more than 99 percent the same at the genetic level.

A good fight with your spouse may be good for your health, research suggests.

Couples in which both the husband and wife suppress their anger when one attacks the other die earlier than members of couples where one or both partners express their anger and resolve the conflict, according to preliminary results of a University of Michigan study.

Researchers looked at 192 couples over 17 years and placed the couples into one of four categories: both partners communicate their anger; in the second and third groups one spouse expresses while the other suppresses; and both the husband and wife suppress their anger and brood, said Ernest Harburg, professor emeritus with the U-M School of Public Health and the Psychology Department, and lead author.

Tissue damage triggers an inflammatory response by white cells to protect skin from infection by killing microbes. The same white cells guide the production of layers of collagen. These layers of collagen help the wound heal but they stand out from the surrounding skin and result in scarring.

New research from the University of Bristol shows that by suppressing one of the genes that normally switches on in wound cells, wounds can heal faster and reduce scarring. This has major implications not just for wound victims but also for people who suffer organ tissue damage through illness or abdominal surgery.

When skin is damaged a blood clot forms and cells underneath the wound start to repair the damage, leading to scarring. Scarring is a natural part of tissue repair and is most obvious where skin has healed after a cut or burn. It ranges from trivial (a grazed knee) to chronic (diabetic leg ulcers) and is not limited to the skin.

The stereotype that couples in same-sex relationships are not as committed as their heterosexual counterparts and are therefore not as psychologically healthy is disputed by two studies featured in the January issue of Developmental Psychology.

Results showed that same-sex relationships were similar to those of opposite-sex couples in many ways. All had positive views of their relationships but those in the more committed relationships (gay and straight) resolved conflict better than the heterosexual dating couples.

A new study published in CANCER found that cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption do increase ovarian cancer risk while caffeine may lower the risk, particularly in women not using hormones.

Various studies have assessed the potential link between modifiable factors such as smoking or caffeine and alcohol intake and have generated conflicting results. To help clarify these associations, Dr. Shelley S. Tworoger, of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues examined ongoing questionnaire data from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital-based Nurses’ Health Study, which includes 121,701 US female registered nurses. The Nurses’ Health Study cohort was established in 1976, when women aged 30-35 completed and returned initial questionnaires.