A beam will finally be circulated. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will now be ready to go in September, according to CERN's latest estimate.

The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometer tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, according to the press from CERN, its own prototype.

There have been numerous delays but most in the physics community had regarded previous estimates with caution anyway.(1) Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch and commissioning is a long process that starts with the cooling down of each of the machine's eight sectors, a process which had already been delayed.

Researchers have long sought a factor that can trigger the brain's ability to learn – and perhaps recapture the "sponge-like" quality of childhood. In the August 8 issue of the journal Cell, neuroscientists at Children's Hospital Boston report that they've identified such a factor, a protein called Otx 2.

Otx2 helps a key type of cell in the cortex to mature, initiating a critical period -- a window of heightened brain plasticity, when the brain can readily make new connections.

Scientists at Tufts University's School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to design an edible optical sensor that can be placed in produce bags to detect harmful levels of bacteria and consumed right along with the veggies. This same technology could mean an implantable device that would monitor glucose in your blood for a year, then dissolve.

Such "living" optical elements that could enable an entirely new class of sensors. These sensors would combine sophisticated nanoscale optics with biological readout functions, be biocompatible and biodegradable, and be manufactured and stored at room temperatures without use of toxic chemicals. The Tufts team used fibers from silkworms to develop the platform devices.

New research in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows there is no evidence to support the argument that organic food is better than food grown with the use of pesticides and chemicals

Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals.

But the research by Dr Susanne Bügel and colleagues from the Department of Human Nutrition, University of Copenhagen, shows there is no clear evidence to back this up.

It's often assumed that men are more aggressive and women are more emotional. Even in negotiations, we are often told that men will be more assertive and women better at fostering relationships. A new study published in Negotiation and Conflict Management Research says that is not the case as often as thought and goes on to state that when people are trying to make a positive impression, they may behave in ways that contradict gender stereotypes.

Jared Curhan of MIT's Sloan School of Management and Jennifer Overbeck of the University of Southern California 's Marshall School of Business assigned 190 MBA students to same-sex groups to represent either a high-status recruiter or a low-status job candidate engaged in a standard employment negotiation simulation. Half of the participants were offered an additional cash incentive to make a positive impression on their negotiation counterparts.

For years, doctors like Arnold Relman and Marcia Angell, both former editors of the New England Journal of Medicine, have been advocating drastic changes to the way the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) deals with pharmaceutical industry funding. The ACCME is the body responsible for accrediting the institutions and organizations that deliver continuing medical education (CME) to doctors after they have finished medical school and residency programs, but there are many doctors who view this continuing education as a “quasi-academic activity.” Mixed in with the respected medical schools that provide CME are businesses, some of them essentially advertising agencies with no standing in the medical community until they become accredited by the ACCME.

What are the forces that drive science and technology? How do we get from Wilbur and Orville Wright’s day where they could tinker their way to a major engineering breakthrough with little more than spruce frames, canvas and a hand built engine.... what.... "a hand built engine?" Where did this come from?

We have all heard of Wilbur and Orville, but who has ever heard of Charlie? Without Charlie there would have been no powered flight at Kitty Hawk. Charlie designed and built the water-cooled engine, from scratch, that Wilbur and Orville used that memorable day in 1903 - he made it in six weeks. Did I mention Charlie was a bicycle mechanic?

It’s been used as a cleaning solution, as an antidote for gonorrhea, a sterilizer during surgery and now is used to fight off bacteria and halitosis. The oxidation of bacteria though the use of a rinse is one of the easiest ways to sterilize an environment, which is why the method has been used for odor control in the mouth since the naissance of Listerine in 1879 as a surgical antiseptic.

Mouthwash has grown from its humble origins to a product that fills a variety of needs. With it carries a variety of consequences. Dr. Philip M. Tierno, Jr. Director of Clinical Microbiology and Diagnostic Immunology at Tisch Hospital, New York University Medical Center surmises on some emerging issues having to do with mouthwash, including alcohol versus alcohol-free washes.

When mouthwash first came into existence there was no non-alcoholic variety. Even today many mouthwashes contain alcohol. However, continual use of a mouthwash containing alcohol can bring about some negative effects as well as positive—including cancer. Similar to those who contract mouth cancer associated with an over consumption of alcohol, riding oneself of bad breath with wash containing alcohol may also be a cancerous trigger.

A strange, metal brew lies buried deep within Jupiter and Saturn, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and in London.

The study, published in this week's online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates that metallic helium is less rare than was previously thought and is produced under the kinds of conditions present at the centers of giant, gaseous planets, mixing with metal hydrogen and forming a liquid metal alloy.

Acid rain from atmospheric pollution can reduce methane emissions from rice paddies by up to 24 per cent according to research led by Dr Vincent Gauci of The Open University. This is potentially a beneficial side effect of the high pollution levels China - the world’s largest producer of rice - is often associated with. Methane is 21-23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

“The reduction in pollution happens during a stage of the lifecycle when the rice plant is producing grain. This period is normally associated with around half of all methane emissions from rice and we found that simulated acid rain pollution reduced this emission by 24 per cent,” said Dr Gauci.