In pursuing cleaner energy there is such a thing as being too green. Unicellular microalgae, for instance, can be considered too green.

In a paper in a special energy issue of Optics Express, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley describe a method for using microalgae for making biofuel. The researchers explain a way to genetically modify the tiny organisms, so as to minimize the number of chlorophyll molecules needed to harvest light without compromising the photosynthesis process in the cells. With this modification, instead of making more sugar molecules, the microalgae could be producing hydrogen or hydrocarbons.

It is sometimes claimed that changes in radiation from space, so-called galactic cosmic rays, can be one of the causes of global warming. A new study, investigating the effect of cosmic rays on clouds, says that the likelihood of this is very small. 

The study "Cosmic rays, cloud condensation nuclei and clouds – a reassessment using MODIS data" was recently published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. A group of researchers from the University of Oslo, Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), CICERO Center for Climate and Environmental Research, and the University of Iceland, are behind the study. 

A group of French research students is launching an online register to flag up scientific papers that have been tainted by fraud and other types of scientific misconduct.

Claire Ribrault, a PhD student in neurobiology at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, unveiled the Scientific Red Cards project last month at a workshop on research integrity sponsored by the European Science Foundation (ESF). The idea is to identify papers that have been shown to be fraudulent but are still in circulation.

If you're a Spider-Man reader, you are certainly aware of “noblesse oblige” - the idea that with great power comes great responsibilities.   And you may believe that if you had great power you would use it compassionately - but it's unlikely you think anyone else wielding great power will act in a compassionate way.

The term was created because it is often perceived that increased power makes people - that is, other, less noble people - less likely to use compassion.   Psychologist Gerben A. van Kleef (University of Amsterdam) and his colleagues from University of California, Berkeley, examined how power influences emotional reactions to the suffering of others.

All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. The study is one of the first to use individuals with traumatic brain injury to determine this connection. Researchers say the implication of this connection means people in many disciplines, including peace studies, health care or religion can learn different ways to attain selflessness, to experience transcendence, and to help themselves and others.

Scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh say they have shown that tiny crystals found inside bacteria provide a magnetic compass to help them navigate through sediment to find the best food and it provides fresh clues to explain biomagnetism – a phenomenon in which some birds, insects and marine life navigate using the magnetic field that encompasses the Earth.

Researchers say their study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, focuses on magnetotactic bacteria, which contain chains of magnetic crystals, called magnetosomes. They exist all over the globe, living in lake and pond sediments and in ocean coastal regions.