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work shows for the first time that switching this gene off in aggressive cancer cells dramatically changes their appearance and behavior

In the new

study, the

team applied the same techniques to several strains of human breast cancer cells in the laboratory, including the so-called triple negative cells

Triple-negative breast cancer cells tend to behave aggressively and do not respond to many of our most effective breast cancer therapies

the cells with suppressed HMGA1 grow very slowly and fail to migrate or invade new territory

next implanted tumor cells into mice

The tumors with HMGA1 grew and spread to other areas, such as the lungs, while those with blocked HMGA1 did not grow well in the breast tissue or spread to distant sites.

NASA's MAVEN mission will be the first mission devoted to studying the Martian upper atmosphere

gather information that should help scientists figure out what happened to the atmosphere and water that once existed on Mars

This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world while opening up a dialogue with students and others on the new frontiers of math and science

In order to make the movie, the atoms were moved with an IBM-invented scanning tunneling microscope

weighs two tons, operates at a temperature of negative 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies the atomic surface over 100 million times

IBM Research lab one of the few places in the world where atoms can be moved with such precision.

Remotely operated on a standard computer, IBM researchers used the microscope to control a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to "feel" atoms

Only 1 nanometer away from the surface, which is a billionth of a meter in distance, the needle can physically attract atoms and molecules on the surface and thus pull them to a precisely specified location on the surface

moving atom makes a unique sound that is critical feedback in determining how many positions it's actually moved

scientists rendered still images of the individually arranged atoms, resulting in 242 single frames

the same team of IBM researchers who made this movie also recently created the world's smallest magnetic bit. They were the first to answer the question of how many atoms it takes to reliably store one bit of magnetic information: 12.

it takes roughly 1 million atoms to store a bit of data on a modern computer or electronic device

atomic memory could one day store all of the movies ever made in a device the size of a fingernail.

Mars One estimates that landing four settlers on Mars in 2023 will cost about $6 billion

plans to pay most of the bills by staging a global reality-TV event, with cameras documenting all phases of the mission from astronaut selection to the colonists' first years on the Red Planet.

The application process extends until Aug. 31. Anyone at least 18 years of age can apply, by submitting to the Mars One website a 1-minute video explaining his or her motivation to become a Red Planet settler. (

application fee, which ranges from $5 to $75 depending on the wealth of the applicant's home country. United States citizens pay $38

reviewers will pick 50 to 100 candidates from each of the 300 regions around the world that Mars One has identified

By 2015, this pool will be whittled down to a total of 28 to 40 candidates, officials said.

core group will be split into groups of four, which will train for their one-way Mars mission for about seven years

. Finally, an audience vote will pick one of these groups to be humanity's first visitors to the Red Planet.

more than 120 countries

United States

17,324

China (10,241) and the United Kingdom (3,581). Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Argentina and India round out the top 10.

these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school

a graduate student, recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures

moms in our study significantly more frequently used forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book

especially interested in looking at the language mothers use when reading both wordless picture storybooks and picture vocabulary books

to see if parents provided extra information to children like relating the events of the story to the child's own experiences or asking their child to make predictions.

The results of the study are significant for both parents and educators because vocabulary books are often marketed as being more educationa

even short wordless picture books provide children with exposure to the kinds of

language that they will encounter at school

lay the foundation for later reading developmen

in, the most promising of which were presented in early February

The two scopes were originally built to carry out surveillance missions under a multibillion-dollar NRO program called Future Imagery Architecture

cost overruns and delays killed the program in 2005, and NASA announced in June 2012 that the NRO had bequeathed the instruments to the space agency

the telescopes' 8-foot-wide (2.4 meters) main mirrors are comparable to that of Hubble, the NRO instruments are designed to have a much wider field of view

Seven big ideas

Mars-orbiting space telescope

Exoplanet observatory

General-purpose faint object explorer

Advanced, Hubble-like visible light/ultraviolet telescope

Optical communications node in space (which would aid transmissions to and from deep-space assets)

Geospace dynamic observatory (which would study space weather and the sun-Earth system)

Research of Earth's upper atmosphere (from a spot aboard the International Space Station)

Whatever missions NASA ultimately assigns to the NRO scopes, the instruments are a long way from launch

they're far from being fully outfitted spacecraft.

no instruments on these two telescopes — just primary and secondary mirrors and the support structures

It's going to take a while to develop the instruments and integrate them into the structure

there's no guarantee that it will be

the funding to bring the scopes up to speed, launch them into space and maintain their operations has not been granted. And

This data can be used to map the distribution and changes in sky brightness, and will eventually allow scientists to investigate correlations with health, biodiversity, energy waste and other factors

The app works by interactively asking users to say whether individual stars are visible. By determining what the faintest visible star is, the researchers learn how many stars are visible at that location, and by extension how bright the sky is

With this app, people from around the world can collect data on skyglow without needing expensive equipment

some of the testers found that without intending too they learned the names of several stars and constellations

is based on the widely used Google Sky Map application

development of the app was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education,

satellites that observe Earth at night measure the light that is radiating into the sky, not the brightness that is experienced by people and other organisms on the ground

One question is whether the hadrosaur skin was green or grey, like most dinosaurs are portrayed, or was it a completely different colour

the CLS to look at unique structures called melanosomes, cellular organelles the contain pigments that control the color of an animal's skin.

"If we are able to observe the melanosomes and their shape, it will be the first time pigments have been identified in the skin of a dinosaur

There has been research that proved the colour of some dinosaur feathers, but never skin

Using light at the CLS mid-infrared (Mid-IR) beamline, Barbi and CLS scientists are also looking for traces of organic and inorganic elements that could help determine the hadrosaur's diet and why the skin sample was preserved almost intact

the sample is placed in the path of the infrared beam and light reflects off of it.

, chemical bonds of certain compounds will create different vibrations

For example, proteins, sugars and fats still found in the skin will create unique vibrational frequencies that scientists can measure

Opportunity's controllers prepared a new set of commands on April 29 designed to get things back to normal, and the fix has apparently worked