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Results from a DNA study of a young boy's skeletal remains believed to be 24,000 years old could turn the archaeological world upside down -- it's been demonstrated that nearly 30 percent of modern Native American's ancestry came from this youngster's gene pool, suggesting First Americans came directly from Siberia, according to a research team that includes a Texas A&M University professor.

"I chose S.thermophilus randomly of the two; I could as easily have chosen L.delbrueckii. Fortunately, I didn't, because Tuur Van Balen, syn-bio-artist extraordinaire, has given a practical demonstration for Next Nature on how to do so!"

"Note that the antimicrobial peptides are produced largely in the fat bodies-so there would be less of this sort of response in forager bees, which don't maintain their fat bodies. This makes sense, since foragers aren't expected to live for long. However, keep in mind that the bees in protein-hungry colonies are unable to develop their fat bodies fully-this one point where nutrition ties in to immunity. Surprisingly, Jay Evans found that these genes are not upregulated in bees from CCD colonies, even though the bees are full of pathogens! There are a few potential explanations for this finding that come to mind: The bee hemocytes are not recognizing the pathogens as foreign (suppression of recognition systems, perhaps by viruses?). The colonies could be protein-starved. Something is suppressing the transcription of the genes, or their translation to peptides. Note that viruses can do this very thing, which I feel may be a big clue!"

"100,000 skin samples every year (that's 5 square meters of skin or a full cow's-worth annually) at its lab in Lyon. Currently, the company receives bits of donor skin from plastic surgery procedures. Then L'Oreal breaks the samples down into individual cells, re-cultures and grows them into .5 cm testing squares. The whole process takes about a week to complete but could soon be done much faster thanks to Organovo's NovoGen Bioprinting Platform. ... The bioprinter has already partnered with Merk to create liver and kidney tissues"

Bacteria are often social creatures. Suspended in colonies of varying shapes and sizes, these microbes communicate with their brethren and even other bacterial species - interactions that can sometimes make them more deadly or more resistant to antibiotics. Now, bacterial colonies sculpted into custom shapes by a 3-D printer could be a key to understanding how some antibiotic-resistant infections develop. The new technique uses methods similar to those employed by commercial 3-D printers, which extrude plastic, to create gelatin-based bacterial breeding grounds. These microbial condos can be carved into almost any three-dimensional shape, including pyramids and nested spheres.

"Craig Venter: 'This isn't a fantasy look at the future. We are doing the future' The pioneering American scientist, who created the world's first synthetic life, is building a gadget that could teletransport medicine and vaccines into our homes or to colonists in space"

A theory of reality beyond Einstein's universe is taking shape - and a mysterious cosmic signal could soon fill in the blanks

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation "space storm", Nasa has warned.

"Researchers at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research have developed a new mathematical model to describe how the human brain visually identifies objects. The model accurately predicts human performance on certain visual-perception tasks, which suggests that it's a good indication of what actually happens in the brain, and it could also help improve computer object-recognition systems."

"THE precursor of life may have learned how to copy itself thanks to simple convection at the bottom of the ocean. Lab experiments reveal how DNA replication could have occurred in tiny pores around undersea vents." "To test this theory, Mast and Braun put these ingredients into tubes 1.5 millimetres long. They used a laser to heat one side of the water and create thermal convection. Sure enough, they found that the DNA doubled every 50 seconds (Physical Review Letters, vol 104, p 188102)."

These beautiful noctilucent clouds once rare are being seen more often and at lower latitudes. Scientists think noctilucent clouds could be a sign of global climate change. What are these clouds and why are they being seen more often.

Exquisite measurements of the radiation left over from the big bang led us to believe that we could work out the curvature of the universe to within a few per cent. In doing so, we have determined how much energy the universe contains and that most of it is in an exotic form called dark energy, which is driving the expansion of space. However, recent discoveries have left me wondering if these claims were premature. As we learn more about dark energy and its effect on the expansion of space and time, we find that dark energy and the shape, or geometry, of the universe are worryingly intertwined.

As if they weren't considered beastly enough, black holes can dive into nearby stars and devour them from the inside out, scientists now suggest. Such invasions by such black holes could help explain the most powerful explosions in the universe, gamma-ray bursts, whose origins remain elusive.

Predictions by Mojib Latif that there may be a slow down in global warming over the next decade that could bely the overall trend.

Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the "Torrance kids," a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, "How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?"

"Researchers at Ohio State University have demonstrated the first plastic computer memory device that utilizes the spin of electrons to read and write data. An alternative to traditional microelectronics, the "spintronics" device could store more data in less space, process data faster, and consume less power."

A major extinction event is under way - but predicting which species will survive could be harder than we thought. That's the conclusion of one of the most accurate analyses ever of diversity in the marine animal fossil record.

WHAT do earthquakes, spinning stellar remnants, bright space objects and a host of other natural phenomena have in common? Some of their properties conform to a curious and little known mathematical law, which could now find new uses.

Scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed an electrical link to living cells engineered to shuttle electrons across a cell's membrane to an external acceptor along a well-defined path. This direct channel could yield cells that can read and respond to electronic signals, electronics capable of self-replication and repair, or efficiently transfer sunlight into electricity.