Researchers have created highly focused pathways that can channel electricity through the atmosphere.

It's not a new idea, Nikola Tesla worked on powering wireless lamps using electrostatic induction, but the new technique can potentially direct electricity up to 30 feet away, shattering previous distance records.

It may also finally put us on the path to channeling lightning with laser power. 

Survey results of over 10,000 mothers have led sociologists to conclude that women who breastfed their babies are at significantly lower risk of postnatal depression than those who do not.

The paper in Maternal and Child Health notes that mothers who planned to breastfeed and who actually went on to breastfeed were around 50% less likely to become depressed than mothers who had not planned to, and who did not, breastfeed. Mothers who planned to breastfeed, but who did not go on to breastfeed, were over twice as likely to become depressed as mothers who had not planned to, and who did not, breastfeed.

A new captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. On the left is the star cluster NGC 3603, located 20,000 light-years away in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. On the right, about half as far from Earth, is a collection of glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576.

Both were discovered by English astronomer John Herschel in 1834, during his three-year expedition to systematically survey the southern skies from near Cape Town. He described NGC 3603 as a remarkable object and thought that it might be a globular star cluster. Future studies showed that it is not an old globular, but a young open cluster, one of the richest known.

The antibiotic clarithromycin is widely used for treating common bacterial infections and has been linked to an increased risk of heart deaths by a study on BMJ.

The absolute risk is small and prescribing practice should not be changed until results have been confirmed in an independent study but the authors say their findings require urgent confirmation, given that many millions of people are prescribed the drug each year. 

If you were a 1990s protester in a developed nation, you probably hate the idea of globalization, though democratization of culture and wealth have clearly been very good things. Globalization used to be controversial but by now no one sentient really thinks cultures that condone rape and stoning of women should be preserved.

Cloud computing will take that globalization to the next level, because it is a key enhancer of innovation and economic development - and it gives groups without giant budgets for hardware a way to compete, just like food science that lets crops grow in inhospitable climes saves lives.

Water has been detected on Mars in the form of permafrost and there is strong evidence that liquid water was a major component of the martian surface in the past.

Clays are an important mineral group for discovering the past on Mars, not only to the presence of water, since clays are hydrous minerals, but they also provide clues as to the source, type, and volume of fluids, along with indications of timescale and mineral alteration. If you are going to search for textural and chemical biosignatures, clay is a good place to start.