Solar geo-engineering is one proposed approach to mitigating the effects of climate change - the idea being to deflect some of the sun's incoming radiation. 

Ignoring the technology issues, in a world where countries can't even agree they contribute to greenhouse gases, the political uncertainties and geopolitical questions about who would be in charge of solar geo-engineering activity and its goals are daunting. A UN of climate change is the worst of all possible worlds. 

Researchers have described a new technique that might one day reveal in higher detail than ever before the composition and characteristics of the deep Earth. There's just one catch: it can't exist.

Instead of being part of the natural world we know, where we have gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces and electromagnetism  the new technique would require a fifth, hypothetical force of nature - a long-range spin-spin interaction.   The building blocks of atoms —electrons, protons, and neutrons — separated over vast distances could still "feel" each other's presence.  

Living against our biological clock, working late-night shifts or eating at inappropriate times, can has been linked to health risks like metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes in Current Biology - at least for mice. 

Insulin action rises and falls according to a 24-hour, circadian rhythm, the researchers write. Mice unable to keep the biological time for one reason or another get stuck in an insulin-resistant and obesity-prone mode. 

Researchers have successfully modeled using both familial and sporadic patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and revealed stress phenotypes and differential drug responsiveness associated with intracellular amyloid beta oligomers in
Alzheimer's disease
neurons and astrocytes. 

The health benefits of low-dose aspirin and omega-3 fatty acids in foods like flax seeds and salmon are touted frequently but the detailed mechanisms involved in their effects are not fully known.

A report in Chemistry&Biology says that aspirin helps trigger the production of resolvins, molecules that are naturally made by the body from omega-3 fatty acids. These resolvins shut off, "resolve," the inflammation that underlies destructive conditions such as inflammatory lung disease, heart disease, and arthritis.

For older adults looking to sharpen their mental abilities, Facebook may be the way to go, according to preliminary psychology research which suggests that men and women older than 65 who learn to use Facebook could see a boost in cognitive function.

Janelle Wohltmann, a graduate student in the Univesity of Arizona department of psychology, set out to see whether teaching older adults to use the popular social networking site could help improve their cognitive performance and make them feel more socially connected.

A routine step in preparing for cleft palate surgery in a child led to an unusual case of lung inflammation (pneumonitis), according to a report in the The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery. 

The strong, flapping flight of bats looks fun but mimicking the function of ligaments, the elasticity of skin, the structural support of musculature, skeletal flexibility, upstrokes and downstrokes robotically also offers great possibilities for the design of small aircraft.

In a flapping animal, positive lift is generated by the downstroke, but some of that lift is undone by the subsequent upstroke, which generates negative lift. By running trials with and without wing folding, the robot showed that folding the wing on the upstroke dramatically decreases that negative lift, increasing net lift by 50 percent.

If a genome is the blueprint for life, then the chief architects are  the molecular regulators of epigenetics, say Yale School of Medicine researchers.

In the past 20 years, scientists have discovered that some proteins, epigenetic factors, traverse the static genome and turn the genes on or off. The staggering number of potential combinations of active and inactive genes explains why a relatively small number of genes can carry out such a wide range of functions. But what guides these epigenetic factors to their target? The answer specialized RNAsb - piRNAs.

 By analyzing data gathered by MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging), a NASA probe that has orbited the planet since March 2011, researchers looking at X-ray fluorescence identified two distinct compositions of rocks on the planet's surface.

A planetary puzzle: What geological processes could have given rise to such distinct surface compositions?

Now, drawing upon the chemical composition of rock features on the planet's surface, scientists at MIT may have an answer. They have proposed that Mercury may have harbored a large, roiling ocean of magma very early in its history, shortly after its formation about 4.5 billion years ago.