Scientists investigating how prion diseases destroy the brain have observed a new form of the disease in mice that does not cause the sponge-like brain deterioration typically seen in prion diseases. Instead, it resembles a form of human Alzheimer's disease, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, that damages brain arteries.

Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time.

You may not realize it, but the cells in your body act like billions of tiny computers, each using a complex system of genes, proteins, enzymes and other tools working together like a piece of software to receive, process and send information. When something goes haywire in those cells' processing systems, serious illnesses can result, including cancer.

Adding a new link to our understanding of the complex chain of chemistry that keeps living cells alive, a team of researchers from the University of Vermont, the University of Utah, Vanderbilt University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology has demonstrated for the first time the specific activity of the protein NEIL3, one of a group responsible for maintaining the integrity of DNA in humans and other mammals.

2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

The fault responsible for the Jan. 12 magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti is visible in images created using NASA radar topography data acquired in 2000.

Neuroscientists have developed a powerful new class of tools to reversibly shut down brain activity using different colors of light. When targeted to specific neurons, they could potentially lead to new treatments for abnormal brain activity associated with disorders including chronic pain, epilepsy, brain injury and Parkinson's disease.

The completion of a high-quality sequence of the maize (corn) genome is announced in the cover story of the November 20, 2009, issue of Science.This new genome sequence reports the sequence of genes in maize and provides a detailed physical map of the maize genome. This map identifies the order in which genes are located along each of maize's 10 chromosomes and the physical distances between those genes.

Scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.

Scientists widely accept that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply.

Clever biochemical strategy enables bacteria to move freely and colonize host

Scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.

Physicists have overcome a hurdle in quantum computer development, having devised a viable way to manipulate a single “bit” in a quantum processor without disturbing the information stored in its neighbors. The approach, which makes novel use of polarized light to create “effective” magnetic fields, could bring the long-sought computers a step closer to reality.

Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thin seasonal ice replacing thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record. The new results, based on data from a NASA Earth-orbiting spacecraft, provide further evidence for the rapid, ongoing transformation of the Arctic's ice cover.

Miniature devices for trapping ions (electrically charged atoms) are common components in atomic clocks and quantum computing research. Now, a novel ion trap geometry could usher in a new generation of applications because the device holds promise as a stylus for sensing very small forces or as an interface for efficient transfer of individual light particles for quantum communications.

Deleting two genes in mice responsible for repairing DNA strands damaged by oxidation leads to several types of tumors, providing additional evidence that such stress contributes to the development of cancer.

Duke researchers connect important genetic variation to malaria resistance.

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated entanglement—a phenomenon peculiar to the atomic-scale quantum world—in a mechanical system similar to those in the macroscopic everyday world. The work extends the boundaries of the arena where quantum behavior can be observed and shows how laboratory technology might be scaled up to build a functional quantum computer.

One-step process derives raw material for fuels and plastic from plants rather than crude oil

A new method for converting algae into renewable natural gas for use in pipelines and power generation has been transferred from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to the marketplace under a license granted to Genifuel Corporation.

Graphene is a technologically promising, two-dimensional form of carbon that has tantalized and puzzled scientists since it was discovered in 2004. Even at room temperature, electrons in graphene are more than 100 times more mobile than in silicon. Graphene apparently owes this enhanced mobility to the curious fact that its electrons and other carriers of electric charges behave as though they do not have mass, much like photons, massless particles of light that also move at a speed independent of their energy.

Analyzing several years' worth of results from Fermilab's Tevatron collider, physicists come up with the most accurate measurement to date of the mass of the W boson, and narrow down the possible mass of the still undiscovered Higgs boson.

For centuries, people have preserved fruit by mixing it with sugar, making thick jams that last for months without spoiling. Now scientists have discovered a fundamental property of mixture behavior that might help extend the life of many things including vaccines, food and library books—and save money while doing it.

The bacterium behind one of mankind’s deadliest scourges, tuberculosis, is helping researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Brookhaven National Laboratory move closer to answering the decades-old question of what controls the switching on and off of genes that carry out all of life’s functions.

Anyone who has watched crime dramas on TV knows that forensic scientists can use DNA “profiling” to identify people from evidence gathered at a crime scene, establish a paternity link or help free an innocent person who has been wrongly jailed.

New method extracts oxygen from water with minimal energy, potentially boosting efforts to develop solar as a 24-hour energy source

Microbes in tropical ocean waters lead to increased carbon uptake

A new pathway for methane formation in the oceans has been discovered, with significant potential for advancing our understanding of greenhouse gas production on Earth, scientists believe.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a five-chapter preview of the much-anticipated online Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF). In development for over a decade, the DLMF is designed to be a modern successor to the 1964 “Handbook of Mathematical Functions,” a reference work that is the most widely distributed NIST publication (with over a million copies in print) and one of the most cited works in the mathematical literature (still receiving over 1,600 yearly citations in the research literature).

An abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from ice sheets that extended to Earth's low latitudes some 635 million years ago caused a dramatic shift in climate.

Terence Tao, 32, will receive $500K to further world-class research in mathematics

Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.

Dennis Jenkins, an archeologist from the University of Oregon, along with other researchers, have recovered mitochondrial DNA from human excrements found in the Paisley Caves located in the Summer Lake Basin north of Paisley in south-central Oregon.

More than 40 percent of the world's oceans are heavily affected by human activities, and few if any areas remain untouched, according to the first global-scale study of human influence on marine ecosystems.

Researchers report that a set of genetic variations in at least four regions of DNA strongly predicts prostate cancer risk and that these variations may be responsible for a large number of prostate cancer cases in white men in the United States.

Scientists predict antisocial metals will bond under high-pressure conditions

An international research consortium today announced the 1000 Genomes Project, an ambitious effort that will involve sequencing the genomes of at least 1,000 people from around the world to create the most detailed and medically useful picture to date of human genetic variation.

Zigzagging some 60,000 kilometers across the ocean floor, Earth's system of mid-ocean ridges plays a pivotal role in many workings of the planet: in plate-tectonic movements, heat flow from the interior, and the chemistry of rock, water and air.

A new study shows that the intellectual boost associated with breast milk is only attained if a child has inherited one of two versions of a specific gene.

A really inconvenient truth: divorce increases the environmental footprint of families

Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory have efficiently injected a current of spin-polarized electrons from a ferromagnetic metal contact into silicon, producing a large electron spin polarization in the silicon. Silicon is by far the most widely used semiconductor in the device industry, and is the basis for modern electronics.

Scientists are closer to understand why although 99 per cent of the human and chimpanzee genes are identical, there are vast differences in the way the two look, behave, think and react to pathogens.

New isotopes push the edge of nuclear existence

California energy regulators adopted a ruling requiring that all homes built after 2020 to be energy neutral...

The plastic memebrane has hourglass shaped pores immitating pores found in plants that enables small mollecules to pass through while blocking larger ones.

Ecological impacts of genetically engineered corn are particularly important because of increased corn demand created by biofuels production

Discovery of salamander hybrids has important implications for evolution and conservation

Sulfur, nitrogen emissions play role in changing chemistry near coast.

A drastic change in the climate of tropical Africa may have significantly driven early human evolution, an international team of scientists has found.

Enormous detector makes first real-time detection of elusive, low-energy neutrinos streaming from the sun's core

Jeopardizes Asian water supplies, contributes to Himalayan glacier melt

Climate change is suspected cause

Ice loss from glaciers and ice will cause a greater rise in sea level sooner than expected

Crater Lake event may lead to development of hazards assessment tool

Icebergs hold trapped terrestrial...

Northern forests play a smaller role in offsetting global warming than previously thought.

Non-reflecting material may help solar cells catch more of the Sun's rays

... land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands, including the coqui frogs of Puerto Rico, originated from a single frog species that arrived on a sea voyage...

Scientists will measure air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen gas

Research explains how ocean currents carried seeds from South...

Biologists have discovered that a split-second, highly orchestrated process drives photosynthesis.

Record-breaking methane storage system derived from corncobs .

Researchers conclusively link disease severity and ocean temperature

Light becomes polarized in detectable ways when reflected from chlorophyll and other chiral molecules necessary to life, so scientists working at NIST have built a device that can detect this polarization—potentially offering a way to find extraterrestrial life from great distances.

The National Science Foundation - Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation has announced 12 grants for fiscal year 2008, awarding a total of $23,779,056 over four years to 54 investigators representing 20 institutions.

Evidence Suggests Late Cretaceous Period South America-Madagascar Link

New "soup and sandwich" hypothesis suggests spaces between mica layers may have provided exactly the right conditions for earliest life.

Plants prepare to respond to light while still in the dark

How are physicists helping an effort to eradicate malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills more than one million people every year?

In new table-top reactor, bacteria from wastewater produce abundant, clean hydrogen from cellulose, or even vinegar, and a little electricity.

Wanted: Bacterium that can eat sugar or sludge; must be team player or electrochemically active; ability to survive without oxygen, a plus.

Bacteria can sense light, and light exposure increases the virulence of one type of disease-causing bacteria

Novel bacterium lives in colorful microbial mats within hot springs