Stanford scientists have harvested a tiny electric current from algae cells, found at the very source of energy production – photosynthesis, a plant's method of converting sunlight to chemical energy.

The research may be one of the many possible first steps toward generating "high efficiency" bioelectricity that doesn't give off carbon dioxide as a byproduct, the researchers say.
 

New tissue engineering research could greatly reduce the number of lab animals required for FDA mandated experimental trials on new health products with medical formulations.

Scientists from Tel Aviv University writing in Tissue Engineering say that the necessary tissue for animal trials can be produced from adult rat stem cells ― cells that can be stimulated to create skin, bone, fat and muscle tissue from an animal in a laboratory setting.

An asteroid impact was likely not responsible for the extinction of the North American megafauna – such as mammoths, saber tooth cats, giant ground sloths and Dire wolves – along with the Clovis hunter-gatherer culture some 13,000 years ago, suggests a new study in PNAS.

When the last ice age came to an end approximately 13,000 years ago and the glaciers covering a large portion of the North American continent began melting and retreating toward the north, a sudden cooling period known as the Younger Dryas reversed the warming process and caused glaciers to expand again. Even though this cooling period lasted only for 1,300 years, a blink of an eye in geologic timeframes, it witnessed the disappearance of an entire fauna of large mammals.

New images from the ESA's Herschel space observatory reveal the formation of previously unseen large stars that reside in the Rosette Nebula, each one up to ten times the mass of our Sun.

Astronomers say it is important to understand the formation of high-mass stars in our Galaxy because they feed so much light and other forms of energy into their parent cloud they can often trigger the formation of the next generation of stars.

Nearly all life forms rely on the same genetic code to specify the amino acid composition of proteins, but just how individual amino acids were assigned to specific three-letter combinations or codons during the evolution of the genetic code is still subject to speculation.

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies say that after only two waves of "matching" and some last minute fiddling, all 20 commonly used amino acids were firmly linked with their respective codons, setting the stage for the emergence of proteins with unique, defined sequences and properties.

Their findings provide the first in vivo data shedding light on the origin and evolution of the genetic code. The results are published in PNAS.

Despite media reports to the contrary, there is no evidence to support the assertion that smoking in cars is 23 times more toxic than in other indoor environments, say researchers writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

The authors say citing the inaccurate statistic has the potential to turn the public against efforts to ban smoking in automobiles. And If you're going to dictate to people how they should behave, not making things up is an important precursor.  

The CMAJ article describes how a local media report of an unsourced statistic — that "second-hand smoke was "23 times more toxic in a vehicle than in a home" — led to widespread reporting of the figure in international media and peer-reviewed literature.