A new battery that runs on sugar has an "unmatched energy density", according to the team behind it.

Other sugar batteries have been developed but energy density has always been the problem. There is a reason gasoline is still popular after 150 years and that reason isn't big oil marketing, it is that the energy density of gasoline is terrific.

The energy density of this new battery is order of magnitude higher than others, allowing it to run longer before needing to be refueled, said Y.H. Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech. They believe the technology could progress enough that it could be running in some devices starting in three years. And they could be cheaper, refillable and biodegradable.

Seismic waves penetrating to a depth of almost 200 miles report the discovery of an anomaly that likely is the volcanic mantle plume of the Galapagos Islands - it's just not where geologists and computer modeling had assumed.

Near the center of Antarctica, measurements from CryoSat - which exists to make comprehensive measurements of the polar regions in an unusually high-inclination orbit and latitudes of 88° north and south -  have detected an unusual pattern in the ice sheet’s elevation. 

CryoSat carries a radar altimeter that can ‘see’ through clouds and in the dark, providing continuous measurements over areas like central Antarctica that are prone to bad weather and long periods of darkness.  The radar measures the surface height variation of ice by timing the interval between the transmission and reception of very short radar pulses as the satellite orbits Earth. CryoSat collects data over Antarctica while passing on northbound and southbound orbits.

Many may have asked the questions ‘Why are boomerangs crescent-shaped?’ and ‘Why do boomerangs come back?’ – but few, however, are in a position to provide scientific explanations – aside, that is, from Prof. Yutaka Nishiyama of the Osaka University of Economics, Japan. In his article ‘Why Do Boomerangs Come Back?’ (Bulletin of Science, Technology&Society, Vol.22, No.1, 13-20，Feb 2002.) he answers both, with references to Bernoulli’s Principle, gyroscopes, inertial moments, the ‘right-hand-rule’, and more. Noting, for example :

A new paper finds that concussions are common among middle-school girls who play soccer, and most continue to play with symptoms.

Using a small sample of email survey and interviews, the authors evaluated the frequency and duration of concussions in young female soccer players, as well as whether the injuries resulted in stopping play and seeking medical attention.  There are no injury-tracking systems for younger players but the background information says that sports-related concussions account for 1.6 to 3.8 million injuries in the United States annually, including about 50,000 soccer-related concussions among high school players.

When tragedies happen, politicians aim to yell on the floors of Congress about how tragedies must be stopped. 

And gun tragedies should be entirely preventable, claim gun ban proponents. Just ban guns. It may make sense to assume that states in which there are tight laws make that state safer and lead to less gun crime, but that data show that the very opposite is true. You can't get a concealed weapon permit in Illinois but Chicago leads the US in gun murders. In 2013, a concealed carry bill was passed, making Illinois the final state to issue concealed gun carry permits.

Rosetta is currently chasing down Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it will become the first space mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to attempt a landing on a comet’s surface and the first to follow a comet as it swings around the Sun.

But for 31 months it has been radio silent. It is powered by solar energy and was placed into deep space slumber in June of 2011 as it cruised out to a distance of nearly 500 million miles from Sol, beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Now it is only about 400 million miles from the Sun and has enough solar energy to power back up.

To everyone's relief, it did. 

Going barefoot in parts of Africa, Asia and South America is dangerous.

Hookworms live in the soil and enter the body through the feet. By feeding on victims' blood, the worms cause anemia and, in children, stunted growth and learning problems. These infections afflict an estimated 700 million of the world's poor. 

Researchers have decoded the genome of the hookworm, Necator americanus, finding clues to how it infects and survives in humans. Necator americanus causes about 85 percent of human hookworm infections, which are not usually fatal. However, in pregnant women, the worm can cause severe anemia, leading to maternal deaths and low birth weights that contribute to newborn deaths.

A new paper claims that exposure to secondhand smoke at home or in the car increases the odds of children being readmitted to the hospital within a year of being admitted for asthma.