"My two dads" is no longer just a lousy TV show.  Using induced pluripotent stem cell technology (controversy-free!) scientists have produced male and female mice from two fathers.

It isn't part of any cultural agenda, the intent was to preserve endangered species, but obviously it opens up the possibility of same-sex couples having their own genetic children.  The authors caution that the "generation of human iPS cells still requires significant refinements prior to their use for therapeutic purposes."

The race is on to replace lithium-ion batteries and Rice University research may put nickel-tin nanowires in the hunt.

The vertical arrays of nickel-tin nanowires are encased in PMMA, the polymer best known as Plexiglas.  The Rice laboratory of Pulickel Ajayan found a way to reliably coat single nanowires with a smooth layer of a PMMA-based gel electrolyte that insulates the wires from the counter electrode while allowing ions to pass through. 

"In a battery, you have two electrodes separated by a thick barrier," said Ajayan, professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry. "The challenge is to bring everything into close proximity so this electrochemistry becomes much more efficient."

A little while ago, I had the pleasure of working on the Aegean island of Santorini.  Santorini was the subject of my first blog post, and now I would like to go into a little more detail.  I had meant to do it earlier, but recently I have been busy moving to another country...

Many of the films we love manage to put us in someone else’s shoes, whether it be the shoes of a social network tycoon or a zombie killer. After all, we don’t pay $15 to see on screen what we do all day. Writers and directors get us into the protagonist’s head in a variety of ways, including letting us hear his or her inner thoughts.

But a more direct route into the shoes of the protagonist is to make it appear as if the viewer is actually in the body of the protagonist.

WASP-12b, a 'hot Jupiter' (Jupiter-sized, extremely hot exoplanet) about 1.4 times the mass of Jupiter and located about 1,200 light years away from Earth, has a carbon-to-oxygen ratio greater than one, according to new measurements.

That makes WASP-12b the first-ever planetary atmosphere that is substantially enriched in carbon along with being the hottest known planet in the Milky Way galaxy.

The researchers contend this carbon-rich atmosphere supports the possibility that rocky exoplanets could be composed of pure carbon rocks like diamond or graphite rather than the silica-based rock found in Earth.

Economics is called the dismal science for a reason - things are never very good to economists.  Heck, economists have been over the moon about the economic downturn because it gives them something to talk about ("Economy booming, inflation low without any help from economic theory" is not exactly going to be a fun article for economists to write) and they get to be more optimistic than the people with no jobs again this year.

Poor nations aren't going to be thrilled about a new paper showing that even peasants under the feudal system had a better standard of living than they had.   Dismal, indeed.

First, I'm afraid I fell victim to one of the classic blunders—the most famous of which is never get in involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this: probability is not additive (as a couple astute Times readers have now pointed out--before going further, you might want to read my Frankie the Fixer puzzle in the left sidebar of THIS PAGE).

A new fourth planet (known as HR 8799e) which orbits a bright star called HR 8799 some 129 light years from Earth (faintly visible to the naked eye) has been discovered, making it the fourth giant planet found outside our solar system.

Our four giant planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.  Like our solar system, HR 8799 also contains two 'debris belts' composed of small rocky or icy objects, along with lots of tiny dust particles, ours being the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune's orbit.

The social impairment of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) can have a profound impact on quality of life. 

As part of their research, Eastern Virginia Medical School scientists say they have verified that a specific mouse strain, known as the BALB/c mouse, is a valid animal model of the limited sociability seen in persons with Autism.   In the presence of another mouse, BALB/c mice move as far away as possible and do not interact as normal mice do,  they say in much the same way people with autism often avoid making social contact with other people.

As if neurotic people weren't already neurotic enough, they now have to be neurotic knowing their relationships and marriages have a lot more difficulty.

But a new study says if neurotic newlyweds have more sex, their marital satisfaction is as high as less neurotic counterparts.  That's a science result we can all get behind!

Neuroticism to eroticism

Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotion and people who are high in it get upset easily, change their mood often and worry frequently. People who score high in neuroticism are also less satisfied in romance and relationships, and when they get married they are more likely to divorce.