Arizona State University researchers have reengineered the genetics of cyanobacteria, producing mutant strains that continuously secrete fatty acids through their cell walls. The reprogramming has essentially turned the microbes into tiny biofuel production facilities.

By Introducing an enzyme called thioesterase into cyanobacteria researchers were able to coax them into overproducing fatty acids. Accumulation within the cells eventually caused these fatty acids to leak out through the cell membrane, through the process of diffusion.

Hemophilia is caused by a genetic defect that inhibits the body's ability to control blood clotting. The two forms of the disease — hemophilia A and B — are associated with the absence of proteins called factor VIII and factor IX, respectively.

The disease affects millions of people and is sometimes untreatable due to patients' immune systems rejecting the standard treatment--infusion with a protein that helps the blood to clot.

To help patients tolerate therapy, doctors try to exhaust patients' immune systems by administering the therapeutic protein intravenously at frequent intervals and for long periods until the body no longer responds by producing inhibitors. While that brute force approach works

So how dangerous is the Large Hadron Collider? How likely is it that when operated at maximum energy the LHC will create a black hole and wipe out earth? Eric Johnson, assistant professor of law at the University of North Dakota and author of the report The Black Hole Case: The Injunction Against The End Of The World, writes in a recent edition of New Scientist:

One day last summer, I was making a feeble stab at cleaning the deck (or as I like to call it the “backyard basement!”) There was a long, thin plastic planter (junk) with dirt in it sprouting some grasses that had happened there on their own. I noticed a commotion in the soil and saw a treehopper partway stuck in a little hole, wiggling around to try to get in the rest of the way. Strange bug behavior! I realized this was actually the prey of a ground nesting wasp.

A survey of television weathercasters conducted by George Mason University researchers shows that two-thirds are interested in reporting on climate change, and more than half are skeptics of the phenomenon.

The survey comes at a time when only a handful of TV news stations employ a dedicated science reporter.

Ultimately, the team hopes to turn TV meteorologists nationwide into a reliable source of informal science education about climate change.

E20 fuel, which blends 20 percent ethanol with gasoline, reduces the tail pipe emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, compared with traditional gasoline or E10 blends, according to a new study in the Journal of Automobile Engineering. In addition, the research found no measurable impact to vehicle drivability or maintenance in conventional internal combustion engines.

E20, the study's authors say, could be used to reduce overall vehicle emissions at a time when many states and the U.S. Department of Transportation are considering policies that would increase the ethanol percentage in standard gasoline. The results are also being used by the Environmental Protection Agency to promote the federal Renewable Fuel Standard program.

Type 2 dopamine receptors (D2DR)—brain receptors that play a key role in addiction--also play a key role in rats' heightened response to food, according to Scripps Insititute Neuroscientists.

The findings suggest that the same brain mechanisms that fuel drug addiction in humans may also accompany the emergence of compulsive eating behaviors and the development of obesity.

The study was published today in Nature Neuroscience.

When investigators gave rats access to varying levels of high-fat foods, they found unrestricted availability alone can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain, leading to compulsive eating behaviors and the onset of obesity.

A new study from University of Utah psychologists suggests that most people are lousy drivers when talking on their cell phones. But a small group of people with an extraordinary ability to multitask can safely drive while chatting, according to a study in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

These individuals – described by the researchers as "supertaskers" – constitute only 2.5 percent of the population. They are so named for their ability to successfully do two things at once: in this case, talk on a cell phone while operating a driving simulator without noticeable impairment.

Euthanasia is a polarizing term that confuses the debate about dying and should no longer be used by physicians, say the authors of an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"The end of life debate seems particularly burdened by confusion over the term 'euthanasia'," the authors write. "Both sides use it to further their ideological views: one side says murder, the other mercy; the right to live versus the right to die with dignity; selfishness versus compassion."

Scientists have discovered the world's smallest superconductor, a sheet of four pairs of (BETS)2GaCl4 molecules less than one nanometer wide.

Their new Nature Nanotechnology study provides the first evidence that nanoscale molecular superconducting wires can be fabricated, which could be used for nanoscale electronic devices and energy applications.