Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air and combine it with water molecules and sunshine to make carbohydrate or sugar. Variations on this process provide fuel for all of life on Earth.

University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical and biological engineering Professor James Dumesic and his research team describe a two-stage process for turning biomass-derived sugar into 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF), a liquid transportation fuel with 40 percent greater energy density than ethanol.

The prospects of diminishing oil reserves and the threat of global warming caused by releasing otherwise trapped carbon into the atmosphere have researchers searching for a sustainable, carbon-neutral fuel to reduce global reliance on fossil fuels.

Sediment cores retrieved from the Arctic’s deep-sea floor by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) report that the Arctic Ocean changed from a landlocked body of water (a ‘lake stage’) through a poorly oxygenated ‘estuarine sea’ phase to a fully oxygenated ocean at 17.5 million years ago during the latter part of the early Miocene era.

The authors attribute the change in Arctic conditions to the evolution of the Fram Strait into a wider, deeper passageway that allowed an inflow of saline North Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean.

Scientists have long thought that microtubules, part of the microscopic scaffolding that the cell uses to move things around in order to hold its shape and divide, originated from a tiny structure near the nucleus, called the centrosome.

Now, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center reveal a surprising new origin for these cellular "highways." Irina Kaverina, Ph.D., and colleagues report that the Golgi apparatus -- a stack of pancake-shaped compartments that sorts and ships proteins out to their cellular destinations -- is the source of a particular subset of these microscopic fibers. The findings point to a novel cellular mechanism that may guide cell movement and possibly cancer cell invasion.

Women cheat on men for their own needs but superb starling females stray from their mates for the sake of their chicks, according to recent Cornell research. This reasoning includes being able to know if mates are too 'genetically similar' for breeding.

That gives 'doing it for the kids' a whole new layer of meaning. The study found that superb starling females (Lamprotornis superbus) cheat on their mates based on these factors:

• Superb starlings are cooperative breeders, meaning breeding pairs get help in raising chicks from other family group members. Some females mate with subordinate males when they need help to raise their chicks.

Researchers say they have discovered the gene that regulates stem cell ability to self-renew and to differentiate into highly specialized types. This means they could program stem cells to become certain cells or do repair automatically.

“You could call this a ‘theory-of-everything’ for stem cells,” said senior author Dr. Michael Rudnicki, Senior Scientist and Professor at the Ottawa Health Research Institute and the University of Ottawa, referring to the often-cited theory of everything for physics.

For more than 25 years, stem cells have been defined based on what they can become: more of themselves, as well as multiple different specialized cell types.

It's fun to imagine life on other planets being advanced alien civilizations and exotic creatures conversing in foreign languages but it's not possible to determine any of those things now.

Instead, by studying various biosignatures found in the light spectrum leaking out to Earth, researchers can speculate on what kind of photosynthesis might occur on such planets and what the extrasolar plants might look like.

Paint it black

It could be the plants are black, says Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. But it all depends on what size and light intensity of star – or sun – the planet feeds off, and the extrasolar planet’s atmospheric chemistry.

The obesity epidemic has become a major public health problem in both industrialized countries and the developing world. Recent studies suggest that the major development of persistent adiposity is established already at pre-adolescence.

The fact that obesity is mainly determined before puberty implies that preschool detection of children at risk is essential along with individual prevention programs.

A Swedish study reports a protocol that detects with high precision which pre-adolescent children will be obese later using only weight and height data.

The report says investment capital flowing into renewable energy climbed from $80 billion in 2005 to a record $100 billion in 2006. As well, the renewable energy sector's growth "although still volatile ... is showing no sign of abating."

The report offers a host of reasons behind and insights into the world's newest gold rush, which saw investors pour $71 billion into companies and new sector opportunities in 2006, a 43% jump from 2005 (and up 158% over the last two years. The trend continues in 2007 with experts predicting investments of $85 billion this year).

In addition to the $71 billion, about $30 billion entered the sector in 2006 via mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and asset refinancing.

The significance of pleiotrophin (PTN) expression in breast cancer has not been clearly established but researchers at Scripps sau they have done it in a new study.

A sheet of molten rock roughly 10 miles thick spreads underneath much of the American Southwest, some 250 miles below Tucson, Ariz. From the surface, you can't see it, smell it or feel it.

But Arizona geophysicists Daniel Toffelmier and James Tyburczy detected the molten layer with a comparatively new and overlooked technique for exploring the deep Earth that uses magnetic eruptions on the sun.

Toffelmier, a hydrogeologist with Hargis + Associates, Inc., in Mesa, Ariz., graduated from ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration in 2006 with a master’s degree in geological sciences. Tyburczy, a professor of geoscience in the school, was Toffelmier's thesis advisor.