Exposing skin to sunlight may help to reduce blood pressure and thus cut the risk of heart attack and stroke, a study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology suggests.

Research carried out at the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh shows that sunlight alters levels of the small messenger molecule, nitric oxide (NO) in the skin and blood, reducing blood pressure.

When it comes to global warming, there are seven big contributors: China is obviously number one, but exempt from climate treaties, as is India and Brazil. Also leading are the United States, gradually weaning itself off of the coal increases that occurred when environmentalists drove nuclear power from the country. Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom round the list out.

A new article in Environmental Research Letters blames these countries for more than 60 percent of pre-2005 global warming. Uniquely, it also assigns a temperature change value to each country that reflects its contribution to observed global warming.

When E. F. Thompson stood on the deck of a ship cruise ship the Indian Ocean in the 1930s and observed a dolphin speed past the vessel in 7 seconds, he had no idea that this single observation would lead Sir James Gray to formulate the enduring paradox that bears Gray's name to this day. 

Based on Thompson's anecdote, Gray estimated the power required to propel the boisterous mammal through the waves at 20 knots (10.3 m/s) and concluded that the animal did not have enough muscle to pull off the feat. Puzzled by the paradox, Gray concluded that dolphins must use a trick of fluid mechanics to sustain the remarkable performance.

The Subaru Telescope, an 8.2-meter telescope operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, has been combing the night sky since 1999. Located at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii, the telescope has been systematically surveying each degree of space, whether it looks promising or not, in search of objects worthy of further investigation. One of the most fascinating objects to emerge from the Subaru Telescope's wide-field survey—Himiko—was discovered in 2009. Himiko, a "space blob" named after a legendary queen from ancient Japan, is a simply enormous galaxy, with a hot glowing gaseous halo extending over 55,000 light-years.

This news release is available in German.

This news release is available in German.

The survivors of a stroke often struggle with persistent loss of function of the central nervous system. Around the world strokes are one of the most frequent causes of paresis. Physiotherapy or occupational therapy can restore a certain degree of mobility. However, a patient with severe paresis, for instance of an arm, can only recover limited function through these therapeutic exercises.

Researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics and MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have discovered a new brain circuit that shapes memory formation by endowing neurons with the ability to connect two events separated in time into a single experience.

In a study appearing in the journal Science a research team lead by Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, MIT Professor and Director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute report the discovery of Island cells and a new brain circuit responsible for limiting the brain's ability to link two events that happen seconds or minutes apart into one experience, a property of memory called temporal association.

“Photography has been around for many years. A problem associated with photography is oftentimes many people do not want to have their picture taken. For example, many celebrities do not want their picture taken or pictures of their companion’s [sic?] or relative’s [sic?] taken because they feel it is an invasion of their privacy.”

What to do? A new solution is described in this April 2012 US patent – Inhibiting unwanted photography and video recording

The linchpin location of the "Star Wars" franchise was the planet Tatooine, home to both Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. It, along with its twin suns, appeared in every movie of the franchise except "The Empire Strikes Back".

How would such a planet, orbiting two stars, form? There are few environments more extreme than a binary star system, if you are forming a planet. 

Kepler-34(AB)b has some answers, according to a new study. Like Tatooine, Kepler-34(AB)b is a circumbinary planet, its orbit encompasses two stars. Since powerful gravitational perturbations from two stars lead to destructive collisions that grind down planetary material, the existence of such planets can be difficult to explain.