The venom from marine cone snails, used to immobilize prey, contains numerous peptides called conotoxins, some of which can act as painkillers in mammals.

A recent study provides new insight into the mechanisms by which one conotoxin, Vc1.1, inhibits pain. The findings help explain the analgesic powers of this naturally occurring toxin and could eventually lead to the development of synthetic forms of Vc1.1 to treat certain types of neuropathic pain in humans.

Can using a well move a mountain? It will if the well is big enough.

Winter rains and summer groundwater pumping in California's Central Valley make the Sierra Nevada and Coast Mountain Ranges sink and rise.

How much? A few millimeters each year. That doesn't sound like a lot but it creaes stress on the state's faults that could increase the risk of an earthquake.

Gradual depletion of the Central Valley aquifer due to groundwater pumping also raises these mountain ranges by a similar amount - about the thickness of a dime - each year, according to a new paper in Nature. That cumulative rise over the past 150 years could be up to 6 inches, according to calculations by the geophysicists. 

U.S. law requires posting summarized results on ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the National Institutes of Health, within one year of study completion for certain categories of industry-sponsored trials. 

The European Union is considering following the US lead yet in some fields compliance with the U.S. law is still rather poor. 

Does it matter? There is increasing public pressure to report the results of all clinical trials. The belief if this would eliminate publication bias and improve public access but that is not evidence-based. What is the point of reading about failed industry trials? The products can't be approved, they will never be released and the start-up company behind the work will be sold off for parts soon after. 

Current computing is based on binary logic -- zeroes and ones -- also called Boolean computing, but a new type of computing architecture stores information in the frequencies and phases of periodic signals and could work more like the human brain using a fraction of the energy necessary for today's computers, according to a team of engineers.

Vanadium dioxide is called a "wacky oxide" because it transitions from a conducting metal to an insulating semiconductor and vice versa with the addition of a small amount of heat or electrical current. A device created by electrical engineers at Penn State uses a thin film of vanadium oxide on a titanium dioxide substrate to create an oscillating switch.

In 2009, a report on the state of forensic science by the National Academy of Sciences noted the lack of sound science in the analysis of evidence in criminal cases across the country.

You wouldn't know it from television shows, but even the most common and long-standing forensic techniques such as fingerprinting are considered questionable - and defense attorneys have a field day promoting fear and doubt about science in the best of circumstances. 

Natural gas has been true boon to emissions. When the rest of the civilized world was adopting more nuclear energy, American politicians representing their constituents were determined to kill it. President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry were cheered by their voters when they announced an end to nuclear science in America in the early 1990s. As a result, America built more coal and that led to America leading the world in CO2 emissions.