The most distant galaxy cluster yet, known as JKCS041, has been discovered by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical and infrared telescopes at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope in Hawaii and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The JKCS041 cluster is located about 10.2 billion light years away, and is observed as it was when the Universe was only about a quarter of its present age.

The previous record holder for a galaxy cluster was 9.2 billion light years away, XMMXCS J2215.9-1738, discovered by ESA's XMM-Newton in 2006, which broke the previous distance record by only about 0.1 billion light years while JKCS041 surpasses XMMXCS J2215.9 by about ten times that.

Education quality is a moving target these days.   With college education a right since the early 1990s and student loans unlimited to pay for it, costs and claims have expanded, as hot air must, to fill the available money space.

Because everyone with good grades can afford to go to Stanford with enough loans or rich parents, lower ranked schools have no reason to charge less because the pool of high-ranked schools can accept is limited - they just have to wait.   

Critics of global warming will note that if the people behind the Kyoto protocol can't even get basic accounting correct there may be plenty of errors in simulations but science is about convergence over time.  And owning up to little mistakes and fixing them.

An international team has found a critical error in the accounting method used to measure compliance with carbon limits and the flaw, which centers on the measurement of CO2 emissions from the use of bioenergy, could undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals if not addressed.

Sex crimes against pre-teen children are no higher during Halloween than at any other times of the year and diverting law enforcement places people at more risk, according to a study in Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment.  

That's not to say parents shouldn't use caution or supervision but the findings raise questions about the wisdom of law enforcement practices aimed at dealing with a problem that does not appear to exist.

The guys over at Deep-Sea News have organized an "Ocean Bloggers Challenge" to fund ocean-related education for classrooms in need. It's through a really nifty website called Donors Choose, which lets you see exactly where your money is going. The projects they've chosen for the challenge include sending students on an overnight sea voyage and setting up a classroom saltwater aquarium, among others.

The recent report of a set of fossils of geniune significance for our understanding of human evolution highlights just how scientifically pathetic the PR circus over the primate fossil Darwinius masillae really was. Paleontologist Jørn Hurum, who purchased the fossil from a collector, clearly thought he had made the find of his life, and so he decided to milk it for all it was worth. The result was science via PR blitz.

Just over a year ago, the Daresbury synchrotron closed down (Is The Ring Destined For The Cracks Of Doom?) and I was contemplating the prospect of travelling to THE Continent (OK, the European mainland) in order to continue our Small-angle X-ray scattering work. 

Are women naturally different from men when it comes to detecting emotions?    Biology may play a role, since there are few opportunities for socialization to shape such gender differences, and some  evolutionary psychologists have suggested that females, because of their role as primary caretakers, are wired to quickly and accurately decode or detect distress in preverbal infants or threatening signals from other adults to enhance their chances at survival. 

But women are better than men at distinguishing between emotions, especially fear and disgust, according to a new study published in Neuropsychologia and have a keener sense for processing auditory, visual and audiovisual emotions. 

Lightweight drinkers rejoice, it may be nature that keeps you from pounding shots like Indiana Jones squeeze Marion in "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a genetic 'switch' in fruit flies that plays an important role in making flies more tolerant to alcohol.  If you're reading this site, you will not that doesn't automatically translate to humans but a counterpart human gene contributes to a shift from metabolizing alcohol to the formation of fat in heavy drinkers. This shift can lead to fatty liver syndrome – a precursor to cirrhosis.

It takes two to reproductively tango for humans but even when plants  (or animals) can self-fertilize their offspring have longer lives when a mate is involved in the process, according to over 100 mini-evolution experiments involving nematode worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) at the University of Oregon. Going it alone increases susceptibility to genetic mutations and reduces that adaptability to changing environments, says their report in Nature.