Recently I saw this Horizon programme on BBC2: Horizon - 2008-2009 - 8. Who Do You Want Your Child to Be?

Science has come one step closer to developing practical methods of gene therapy. Viable gene therapy means treatment for currently untreatable diseases including the vast amount of genetic disorders affecting millions world-wide.

According to a new study published by the Mayo Clinic, patients with Parkinson disease (PD) have another problem to deal with. Researchers have found that one in six patients taking therapeutic doses of
certain prescription drugs for management of PD have developed troubling behavioral symptoms. The most problematic symptoms include compulsive gambling and hypersexuality.

By combining the results of a number of powerful techniques for studying material structure at the nanoscale, a team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with colleagues in other federal labs and abroad, believe they have settled a long-standing debate over the source of the unique electronic properties of a material with potentially great importance for wireless communications.

The new study* of silver niobate not only opens the door to engineering improved electronic components for smaller, higher performance wireless devices, but also serves as an example of understanding how subtle nanoscale features of a material can give rise to major changes in its physical properties.

Portuguese scientists discovered a new molecular mechanism that allows gamma herpes viruses to chronically infect patients and helps to explain why these patients present an abnormally high incidence of the lymphocyte (or white blood cell) cancer lymphoma, particularly when their immune system is compromised.

The research, just published in the advance online edition of The Embo Journal, reveals how these viruses mimic the host molecular machinery to shutdown NF-kB –a key regulatory protein complex involved in cell division and death – on infected lymphocytes, and how this - probably by disrupting the cells normal regulatory systems - creates the conditions for the development of lymphomas.

Before the invention of boxed chocolates, Corvettes and bling-bling, all a man had to do for sweet lovin' was provide his special ladies with meat.  Studies of extant hunter-gatherer societies show that literally bringing home the bacon leads to greater reproductive success.  Highly skilled hunters also partake in more extra-marital affairs and in polygamous societies, have more wives. 

Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have demonstrated that adult humans still have a type of "good" fat previously believed to be present only in babies and children. Unlike white fat, which stores energy and comprises most body fat, this good fat, called brown fat, is active in burning calories and using energy. The finding reported in The New England Journal of Medicine could pave the way for new treatments both for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Scientists had thought that brown fat only existed in humans during childhood and was mostly gone by adulthood. The paper shows that brown fat not only exists in adult humans, but also for the first time, that the fat is metabolically active.

Spoonjack today announced iBone -- the Pocket Trombone for iPhone and iPod Touch. iBone lets users play along with music in their iTunes library and with songs from the iBone Songbook and even shows them how. iBone combines an instrument, band, and trainer into a single application.

"Our aim is to produce something playable, practicable, and fun," said Tom Scharfeld, Founder of Spoonjack. "With iBone, we've brought the Bone and the band to the phone so users can make music, have fun, and even learn wherever they may be."

iBone features an interface easy enough for anyone to use: 1. Touch the display or blow into the microphone to produce a sound. 2. Slide fingers to change pitch. 3.

Complex objects like automobiles and birthday cakes are created using a 'top down' process; the structure is imposed from the outside.    When things grow using order imposed from within, like biological objects, it is called a bottom-up approach.   

The construction of complex man-made objects--a car, for example, or even a pizza--almost invariably entails what are known as "top-down" processes, in which the structure and order of the thing being built is imposed from the outside (say, by an automobile assembly line, or the hands of the pizza maker).

Engineers at Oregon State University say they have discovered a way to use ancient life forms, diatoms, to create one of the newest technologies for solar energy - systems that may be surprisingly simple to build compared to existing silicon-based solar cells.

Diatoms are tiny, single-celled marine life forms have existed for at least 100 million years and are the basis for much of the life in the oceans, but they also have rigid shells that can be used to create order in a natural way at the extraordinarily small level of nanotechnology.   They are also a key part of the marine food chain and help cycle carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.