Molecular biologists and mathematical models frequently don't mix well, especially when the molecular biologists in question were trained before the rise of genomics, back when most labs only needed a computer for designing new vector sequences, writing papers, and checking email. Behind this skepticism is the intuition that biology is extremely messy (true), and difficult to quantify (also true). Also contributing is the long history of the cell as a molecular black box; for a long time, we had no idea what was going on inside the cell in molecular terms (somewhat analogous to doing chemistry without knowing about atoms), and in fact we still don't know the molecular role of a good chunk of the protein-coding genes in the human genome.

Virgin Galactic officially debuts SpaceShipTwo, named the VSS Enterprise, fast on the heels of their earlier ready for liftoff announcement in Wired.  From the Wired article, they noted

A meeting of the San Diego Software Industry Council. The subject: What will Web 3.0 look like?

“Why don’t we know?” asked one venture capitalist. “Are we idiots?”

The VC was pandering to an in-group audience. The implied answer was, No, we’re not idiots, we are successful, sophisticated investors, entrepreneurs, and scholars of the web!

But y’know what? The truth is, yes, we are idiots. We are idiots because of technology colonization, and we fall for it every time.

Fifteen years ago the World Wide Web came along, and what did we do with it? We used it for push-publishing, for banner ads, and to sell stuff from web storefronts. In other words, we treated the WWW like an electronic magazine, or another television channel.

AIDS researchers have for the first time demonstrated that human blood stem cells can be engineered into cells that can target and kill HIV-infected cells — a process that potentially could be used against a range of chronic viral diseases. The study, published today in PLoS ONE, demonstrates that human stem cells can be engineered into the equivalent of a genetic vaccine.

By Taking CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes — the "killer" T cells that help fight infection — from an HIV-infected individual, the researchers identified the molecule known as the T-cell receptor, which guides the T cell in recognizing and killing HIV-infected cells.

A political scientist from the University of Alberta has uncovered a dastardly ploy by the producers of Thomas and Friends, a popular children's TV show, to turn their innocent audience of youngsters into  socially intolerant conservatives. 

After analyzing 23 episodes of Thomas and Friends, a show about a train, his friends and their adventures on a fictional island, political scientist Shauna Wilton was able to identify themes that she believes are incompatible with the egalitarian world society her and her social scientist friends are planning for our children. 

In a recent Journal of the National Cancer Institute editorial, doctors expressed concern over the media's coverage of oncology research, citing examples of exaggerated fears, hopes, and a general lack of skepticism in the reporting. 

The editorial points, for example, to the misleading coverage of a New England Journal of Medicine study that documented the trial results of the new anti-cancer drug olaparib. One national news outlet claimed the drug "was the most important cancer breakthrough of the decade," but failed to note that the study was uncontrolled (so there is no way to know if the drug accounted for the findings), and very preliminary (it is not known if the findings will ever translate into longer life).

A new study appearing tomorrow in Earth and Planetary Science Letters rules out the possibility that the methane on Mars was delivered by meteorites, boosting the theory that life exists on the red planet.

Researchers had thought that meteorites might be responsible for Martian methane levels because when the rocks enter the planet's atmosphere they are subjected to intense heat, causing a chemical reaction that releases methane and other gases into the atmosphere.

However, the new study, by researchers from Imperial College London, shows that the volumes of methane that could be released by the meteorites entering Mars's atmosphere are too low to maintain the current atmospheric levels of methane. Previous studies have also ruled

If you start smoking cigarettes, chances are you'll become addicted. But that's only part of the story, according to new research published in Psychopharmacology.  After exposing rats to passive smoke and studying how their brains responded, the authors of the studies are suggesting that just being exposed to cigarette smoke may result in nicotine dependence.  

In a set of four experiments on male Wistar rats, researchers investigated whether rats exposed passively to tobacco smoke would become dependent on nicotine.  They specifically looked at how the rats' brains responded to being exposed to tobacco smoke and whether the rats displayed withdrawal symptoms.

Female fruit flies can be too attractive to the opposite sex –– too attractive for their own good –– say biologists at UC Santa Barbara. In a new PLoS Biology study, they report that too much male attention directed toward attractive females can lead to smaller families and, ultimately, a reduced rate of population-wide adaptive evolution.

The authors explain that the term "good looking," among fruit flies, refers to something, like a large body. From the perspective of a male fly, a desirable mate is a female that is larger and can therefore produce more offspring.