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a strategy to create self-healing, slippery liquid-infused porous surface(s) (SLIPS) with exceptional liquid- and ice-repellency, pressure stability and enhanced optical transparency. Our approach—inspired by Nepenthes pitcher plants13—is conceptually different from the lotus effect, because we use nano/microstructured substrates to lock in place the infused lubricating fluid. We define the requirements for which the lubricant forms a stable, defect-free and inert ‘slippery’ interface.

ts capability to repel various simple and complex liquids (water, hydrocarbons, crude oil and blood),

A team of gamers needed just ten days to produce an answer to an enzyme riddle that had eluded experts for more than a decade.

"Think of it as rapid prototyping in biology--we make the part, test it, and then expand on it," says Reshma Shetty, one of the company's cofounders. "You can spend more time thinking about the design, rather than doing the grunt work of making DNA." A very simple project, such as assembling two pieces of DNA, might cost $100, with prices increasing from there.

A new study finds support for the "grandmother hypothesis," the idea that older women spread their genes most effectively by helping their daughters take care of their children.

Thus paternal grandmothers were most beneficial to the survival of their granddaughters and least beneficial to the survival of their grandsons, while maternal grandmothers showed an intermediate effectiveness. Experts are thrilled by the findings. "Wow, very interesting," says Hawkes. "The consistent results across seven populations ... seem to clarify previously inconsistent results." Lorena Madrigal, an anthropologist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, calls the study "an important contribution to a topic of great interest to evolutionary biologists."