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Strict norms for GM crop mooted
New Delhi: Two days after biotechnology research company Monsanto India admitted that its Bt (Bollgard-I) cotton had become vulnerable to pink bollworm insect pests in many districts of Gujarat, a member of Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC)

GMO bans, laws, and labels from around the world (1)
Prince Charles has called them the 'biggest environmental disaster of all time,' while agriculture industrialists like Monsanto swear they're safe for human consumption and a boon for the environment. Genetically modified foods are nothing if not

Sushi chef, restaurant charged with serving whale
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A California sushi chef and the restaurant in which he worked have been charged with illegally serving meat from an endangered Sei whale, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45, and the parent company of the popular restaurant The Hump in Santa Monica were charged late on Wednesday with violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act which makes it illegal to sell any kind of whale meat.

Shoddy construction beats precision in quantum world
Instead of striving to eliminate imperfection physicists would do better to inject a bit of randomness into their quantum devices

Researchers Gain New Insights into the Mystery of Thalidomide-Caused Birth Defects
Half a century ago, thousands of pregnant women in 46 countries took a drug for morning sickness that would later be discovered to cause severe malformations in developing fetuses. Worldwide, roughly 10,000 affected children nicknamed "thalidomide babies" were born with multiple defects, including the characteristic shortened upper limbs (a condition known as phocomelia, Greek for "seal limbs"), before the drug was discontinued in 1961 after four years on the market.

GMO in RP’s agriculture slammed anew
Anonymous (not verified) BISDAK OF LOS ANGELES (not verified) 03/11/2010 - 21:01 Anonymous (not verified) 03/11/2010 - 20:07 erwin of saudi (not verified) 03/11/2010 - 14:59 Anonymous (not verified) 03/11/2010 - 14:53 anonymous (not verified) 03/10/2010

'Terminator' asteroids could re-form after nuke
We'd better make sure that we send a big enough bomb to stop an incoming asteroid – if we don't, the space rock could reassemble

A New Spin on Conductivity: Electric Signals Can Propagate through an Insulator
An electric insulator, in the simplest terms, blocks the flow of electric current. So it would be a bit counterintuitive, to say the least, if a current on one side of an insulator could produce voltage on the other.

Today on New Scientist: 11 March 2010
All today's stories on newscientist.com at a glance, including: how the climate science battle spread to US classrooms, the world's oldest rivers, and an upgraded robot toddler

Floor Plan: Linoleum May Be Green, but Is There an Ecofriendly Way to Keep It Clean?
Dear EarthTalk: I have a new linoleum floor, which I chose partly for its ecofriendliness. How do I clean and maintain it without using harsh or toxic chemicals? --A. J. Maimbourg, via e-mail

Complete genomics finds its first diseases
Whole-genome sequencing has found its first disease-causing mutations – but will it illuminate our genetic "dark matter", asks Ewen Callaway

Your partner has herpes - now the good news
The genes that allow herpes virus to evade our immune system have been identified and deleted to form a new vaccine

The green revolution sweeps into the bathroom
The humble toilet is set for a techno upgrade that could reduce pollution and save water, says Helen Knight

EU commission under fire over GM potato A row has flared in parliament following the commission's decision to allow a genetically modified potato to be grown in some EU countries.This month's decision comes after a 13-year campaign by the German
A row has flared in parliament following the commission's decision to allow a genetically modified potato to be grown in some EU countries. This month's decision comes after a 13-year campaign by the German chemical company BASF. But commission president

World's oldest rivers mapped under huge desert dunes
Ancient waterways buried beneath Australia's Simpson desert have been traced – even though massive dunes make remote sensing impossible

Natural history museums - a photographer's playground
What is it about the museums that seems to draw art photographers to them? New Scientist asked three to explain why in an online gallery of their work

Arranged Marriages Can Be Real Love Connection
Think arranged marriages are loveless? Not so, says psychologist Robert Epstein, a contributing editor for Scientific American MIND magazine. He spoke March 10 at the 92nd Street Y’s Tribeca site in New York City:

“And there’s even a study published in India [Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh of the University of Rajasthan, 1982] but using an American love scale, called the Rubin Love Scale, that compared love in love marriages in India, because they have those, too, to love in arranged marriages. And in this particular study, love in the love marriages starts out very high. And then over time it decreases. That’s what all of our studies show. And in the arranged marriages--and this is true in my work, too--we see the love starting out relatively low. Because in some cases the people barely know each other, sometimes they’ve had a half an hour of contact in total before they got married. And then it increases gradually, surpasses the love in the love marriages at about five years. And 10 years out it’s twice as strong.”

Robot toddler gets an upgrade
See the springier legs and more sensitive hands developed for a toddler-sized robot that will test theories about how flesh-and-blood children learn

WA in uproar over approval for GM canola crops
Western Australia has become a GM crop state with approval by the State Government to allow the introduction of GM canola to farms across the state. In parliament, the Liberal Government of Western Australia used its numbers to defeat the Labor’s

Battle over climate science spreads to US schoolrooms
In three states, alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming must be taught – and there seem to be links to efforts to teach creationism

New Hope for Battling Brain Cancer (preview)
In May 2006 Dwayne Berg woke up on a gurney in a Seattle emergency room, an IV in his arm and a team of doctors and nurses working him up. The last thing the 42-year-old financial executive could remember was running on a treadmill at his gym, part of his regular fitness regimen. He had suffered a seizure and tumbled off the machine, and although he had not hurt himself in the fall, doctors had asked for an MRI scan of his brain to see if they could find a cause for the seizure.

They did, and the news was not good: the scan showed a large mass in the left frontal lobe that turned out to be a malignant glioma, a brain cancer that is almost invariably fatal. Berg underwent standard treatment: an operation to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy and radiation to eradicate any cancer cells that might remain.

Divining the Right Drug
Imagine suffering from the crushing weight of major depression, then finally getting diagnosed and starting treatment with a drug--only to realize after two months that the medication, despite its unpleasant side effects, is not alleviating your depression. Unfortunately, this experience is far from rare: more than two thirds of patients with depression have no luck with the first medication they are prescribed and must also endure the withdrawal effects that come with discontinuing a drug before trying a new one. Finding the right treatment can prove a lengthy, painful process of trial and error. A new technology, however, may bypass this ordeal by gauging very early in a treatment regimen how well a drug is working based on the patient’s brain waves.

The technology, called quantitative electro­enceph­alography (QEEG), measures a person’s brain-wave pattern with EEG and then compares it with a database of normal samples to detect abnormal function. In a study published in the September 2009 issue of the journal Psychiatry Research , scientists used QEEG to record brain activity in subjects with major depressive disorder before they began treatment, after one week on an antidepressant and after eight weeks on the drug--the period it takes such drugs to achieve full effect. Changes in the QEEG readout after just one week of medication predicted 74 percent of the time whether patients would experience either a recovery or a remission of symptoms by the end of eight weeks.

Will the Clean Tech Bubble Burst?
BOSTON--Economic bubbles are now famous, and the collapse of the dot-com business a decade ago made the bursting of bubbles infamous. A panel of experts here at the Going Green East conference yesterday ended up in a lively, entertaining and, at times, contentious debate over whether the growth of so-called clean tech--renewable energy and environmentally friendly technologies--has entered the bubble stage, if that bubble is bursting...or if a bubble has ever existed.

Lucky for anyone reading these words, the conference organizers at Always On videotaped the panel and have already posted it online for viewing. (Use this link then scroll two thirds down the page to the embedded session title "The Cleantech Bubble?".) The first 10 minutes have some of the best fireworks from two pioneers of major technology ramp-ups, including Bob Metcalfe , who invented the Ethernet and drove the vast growth of the Internet, and George Gilder , whose prognostications about hot telecomm technologies and the darling companies behind them greatly pumped up the dot-com bubble. If you listen even longer you'll hear all four panelists ultimately bash subsidies for technology of all kinds, itself worth the price of admission--which in this case, is free.

The blessing and curse of choice
Choosing is important to us, but also disquieting – The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar ranges far and wide to help you do it better

Malaria rates drop in the Americas, but travelers still worry
MIAMI--Malaria continues to be a global scourge, sickening some 300 million to 500 million people annually. Most of the resulting one million to three million malaria deaths occur in regions where it is highly endemic, such as sub-Saharan Africa and parts of south Asia. 

Innovation: Sending botnets the way of smallpox
Could forcing computer owners to keep their machines up to date with the latest security software help stop cybercrime in its tracks?

Scholars up in arms over transgenic certificates
More than 120 Chinese scholars have filed a petition to the nation's top legislature, demanding, on the grounds of bio-safety, the revocation of the Agriculture Ministry's certificates on two transgenic rice breeds and more cautious licensing in the

Official: issue GMO Safety Certificate not equivalent to allowing commercial production
Vice Minister of Agriculture Wei Chao'an stressed that issuing Safety Certificate of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) is evaluation and recognition of scientists' work of transgenic biotechnology research and its results, and it is not the same as

Official: issue GMO Safety Certificate not equivalent to allowing commercial production
Vice Minister of Agriculture Wei Chao'an stressed that issuing Safety Certificate of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) is evaluation and recognition of scientists' work of transgenic biotechnology research and its results, and it is not the same as

Mom and dad, stop stifling me - it's damaging my brain
Overprotective parents don't just limit their children's freedom – they may also slow brain growth in an area linked to mental illness

Scrub up well
A simple, natural beauty booster.

Video: Extreme physics
Check out video of Anil Ananthaswamy's journeys to some of the world's most extreme locales where physics experiments are under way

Extreme physics at the ends of the Earth
Anil Ananthaswamy visits some of the bleakest locations on Earth to explore the most tantalising mysteries of the cosmos in The Edge of Physics

Japan fish sellers blasts tuna ban
Japan is opposing a proposed Atlantic bluefin tuna ban, with everyone from fish sellers to the government calling it unnecessary.

GM Grain Still 'Long Distance away'
Genetically modified (GM) foods still have a long way to go before they reach the Chinese market even though the Ministry of Agriculture has certificated two strains of GM rice, a senior rural affairs official said on Wednesday. Before reaching the

WA in uproar over approval for GM canola crops
Western Australia has become a GM crop state with approval by the State Government to allow the introduction of GM canola to farms across the state. In parliament, the Liberal Government of Western Australia used its numbers to defeat the Labor’s

EU commission under fire over GM potato
A row has flared in parliament following the commission's decision to allow a genetically modified potato to be grown in some EU countries. This month's decision comes after a 13-year campaign by the German chemical company BASF. But commission

Biotech Bill: Sweeping powers, glaring omissions
Tags: Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India, National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority, Bill, GM, Genetic Engineering Approvals Committee The biotech regulatory Bill gags dissent and takes away the power of states without providing any safeguards

'GM foods too risky for consumption
Extract not available.

World-Herald editorial: Court ruling's huge effect on sugar beet industry
Even as spring approaches and planting time for sugar beets in western Nebraska looms, farmers are mired in uncertainty. They and beet producers across the United States await a federal court decision that could disrupt their growing season. Opponents

European Union Approves GMO Potato
BASFescape_start39;s genetically modified Amflora potato, which has just been approved by the European Commission, contains genes that are resistant to antibiotics. Photo credit: The Independent/AP The European Union has traditionally rejected approval

Monsanto faces fight as probes bolster critics
As the world's largest seed company, Monsanto Co. has been branded a bully before. Usually, the company dismisses such criticism as ax-grinding by activists or others who are opposed to its genetically modified seeds. These days, however, Monsanto has a

Genomes for the whole family
By Janelle Weaver

By sequencing the genomes of three patients with rare genetic disorders, and comparing them with genetic information from unaffected family members, two studies have managed to narrow down the causes of the diseases.

Between them, the analyses bring the number of individuals who have had their full genomes sequenced from seven to twelve.

A team led by David Galas of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Wash., sequenced the genomes of a family of four in which the two children had extremely rare genetic disorders--Miller syndrome and primary ciliary dyskinesia1.

GM grain still 'long distance away' 2010-03-11 07:28
Rice strains still require certification from health, quality inspection departments BEIJING: Genetically modified (GM) foods still have a long way to go before they reach the Chinese market even though the Ministry of Agriculture has certificated two

The fray over GM food

Scientists solve puzzle of chickens that are half male and half female
A puzzle that has baffled scientists for centuries – why some birds appear to be male on one side of the body and female on the other – has been solved by researchers.

Way to go: MBL scientists identify driving forces in human cell division
If you can imagine identical twin sisters at rest, their breath drawing them subtly together and apart, who somehow latch onto ropes that pull them to opposite sides of the bed—you can imagine what happens to a chromosome in the dividing cell.

First whole genome sequencing of family of 4 reveals new genetic power
The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) has analyzed the first whole genome sequences of a human family of four. The findings of a project funded through a partnership between ISB and the University of Luxembourg was published online today by Science on its Science Express website. It demonstrates the benefit of sequencing entire families, including lowering error rates, identifying rare genetic variants and identifying disease-linked genes.

Arctic Seed Vault becomes world's most diverse collection of crop diversity
Days after celebrating its second anniversary, the Svalbard "Doomsday" Global Seed Vault is receiving this week thousands of new seeds that will push its collection to more than half a million unique samples, making it the most diverse assemblage of crop diversity ever amassed anywhere in the world.

GM grain still 'long distance away'
(Beijing Time) China Daily Rice strains still require certification from health, quality inspection departments BEIJING: Genetically modified (GM) foods still have a long way to go before they reach the Chinese market even though the Ministry of

West puts China to GM food test
Food security has always been a vital issue for China. And given its population of 1.3 billion, it is even more important today. Most of the debates on the problem concentrate on whether the rate of increase of farm products can catch up with the

China - GM crops move foreward
China will accelerate development of its own genetically modified (GMO) crops, seeking to secure food security and international competitiveness, an official from the country's Ministry of Agriculture said. Â The official from the Ministry's biosafety

Agriculture official urges more controls before growing GM foods
Even though a safety certificate for genetically modified rice was issued in October last year, the central government says more controls will be needed before people are allowed to grow such crops.

Rules for trading, planting GM food items
Be careful what you do with the seeds of the fruit and vegetables you eat - they could land you in jail. Under a new law, anyone who keeps the seeds of genetically modified (GM) food items and plants them in their garden or plot without government

GM grain still 'long distance away'
Rice strains still require certification from health, quality inspection departments BEIJING: Genetically modified (GM) foods still have a long way to go before they reach the Chinese market even though the Ministry of Agriculture has certificated two

IPCC Errors Prompt Review by International Science Academies
African crop yields wither, along with the Amazon rainforest; Himalayan glaciers disappear by 2035. These are the erroneous predictions ascribed to the most recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--a document reviewed by some 2,500 scientists and other experts as well as vetted by more than 190 countries. So does the fact that a few errors crept into a more than 3,000 page report merit a revision of IPCC processes?

A vote to ban GM crop defeated
Terry Redman says it is possible to grow regular canola without fear of contamination A push to ban the cultivation of genetically modified canola in Western Australia has been defeated in State Parliament. The disallowance motion moved by the Opposition

Einstein passes cosmic test
By Zeeya Merali

It's another victory for Einstein -- albeit not a resounding one.

Chicken's split sex identity revealed
By Janet Fang

A study of sexually scrambled chickens suggests that sex in birds is determined in a radically different way from that in mammals.

Researchers studied three chickens that appeared to be literally half-male and half-female, and found that nearly every cell in their bodies--from wattle to toe--has an inherent sex identity.

Egyptian sarcophagus returns home
The United States hands over a well-preserved, 3,000-year old Pharaonic Sarcophagus to Egypt at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

TB or Not TB?: Novel Detector Could Shorten Testing Times, Aid Treatment Efforts
Tuberculosis is a serious public health challenge in the developing world, where the infection claims roughly two million lives each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) . Yet the disease, which is a leading killer of patients with HIV/AIDS, is cumbersome to detect, resulting in delayed or inappropriate treatment, greater spread of the infection and preventable deaths.

Science funding: less hot air and more specifics
At the third science debate between the three main British political parties, it was unclear how secure the science budget will be after the upcoming general election

FCC reveals additional details of its plan to blanket the country with broadband
About a third of all Americans still lack broadband access to the Internet. At its Digital Inclusion Summit, held Tuesday in Washington, D.C., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provided a preview of its upcoming National Broadband Plan (NBP) to provide high-speed Internet access to the estimated 93 million people in the U.S. without it. The plan, mandated by Congress last year as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , aims to increase home broadband use to 90 percent of the population by 2020.

Monsanto 7-state probe threatens profit from 93% soybean
At least seven US state attorneys general are investigating whether Monsanto Co, the worlds largest seed producer, has abused its market power to lock out competitors and raise prices. Iowa and Illinois, whose antitrust probes Monsanto disclosed

British food industry should not underestimate the impact of EC decision to approve GM crops
The European Commission's decision to approve a series of genetically-modified crops, including a starch potato named Amflora, will have a "massive" impact on the way Europeans regard the technology.

Accidental origins: Where species come from
Organisms gradually grow apart until they become different species – right? If new research is correct, it's more often down to tricks of fate

Obesity: Food kills, flab protects
Disease and obesity go hand in hand, but an increase in body fat may actually be part of our body's attempts to protect itself from the effects of unhealthy eating

Roger Penrose: Non-stop cosmos, non-stop career
The mathematician and self-proclaimed incurable optimist talks about his cameo in an Oscar-nominated movie and why he has no time for string theory

Turning tables on prostate cancer's drug resistance
Prostate cancer drugs trigger the release of a molecule that makes tumours grow – the discovery could lead to a way to keep the cancer at bay

Today on New Scientist: 10 March 2010
All today's stories from newscientist.com at a glance, including: the (accidental) origin of species, why food kills but flab protects, and why women with good genes might get more sex

Auto-dicted: Sans a Major Diversion of U.S. Transportation Dollars to Mass Transit, Urban Traffic Congestion May Not Ease
Dear EarthTalk: Short of massive efforts to build a public transportation infrastructure, which doesn’t appear likely anytime soon, what is being done to address traffic congestion, which is reaching absurd levels almost everywhere? --John Daniels, Baltimore

Why GM Has No Place in a World in Transition
I was disappointed to read Mark Lynas’s piece in New Statesman, “Why We Greens Keep Getting It Wrongâ€. The piece builds on Lynas’s previous much publicised conversion to nuclear power, arguing that if we are to apply the

Introducing the Newest Scientific Measurement: A "Rosenfeld" for Energy Savings
Energy-efficiency gurus want to create the "Rosenfeld" as a simple unit of energy savings.

It may not roll off the tongue like the ohm, watt or volt, but it would follow in their tradition. Many call Arthur Rosenfeld, a recently retired member of the California Energy Commission , the "godfather of energy efficiency." One Rosenfeld would represent saving 3 billion kilowatt-hours per year--the same amount generated by a 500-megawatt coal-run power plant .

Sunshine is free, so can photovoltaics be cheap?
Here's how to make a solar cell from silicon : take one solid block of doped silicon, saw it into thin wafers, layer said semiconductors beneath a panel of transparent glass, connect them to a metal electrode that can channel away the electrons knocked loose by incoming photons and turn it into a photovoltaic device. That process has at least two flaws: such silicon is expensive, contributing more than half to the final price of a solar photovoltaic, and sawing it turns as much as half of that silicon into wasted grit.*

Tobacco Fights Toxins? GM Tobacco Plants Disarm Harmful Pond Scum
The tobacco plant is considered a villain of the plant world because of the harmful effects of smoking it. But now a genetically engineered tobacco plant is enjoying a moment of redemption, as scientists� have discovered that tweaking a certain gene in

Record Set Straight On GM seeds
VICE Agriculture Minister Wei Chaoan said in Beijing yesterday that no approval had ever been granted for the import of any genetically modified seeds for commercial planting in China. The ministry issued safety...

How to Make a Cheap Silicon Solar Cell
1366 Technologies can grow a photovoltaic wafer directly from melted silicon

Zoologger: Mummy, can I have some more carrion soup?
Burying beetles have one of the more disgusting lifestyles known – but hey, they are also terribly good parents

The luck of the Tasmanian devils is in their genes
The meat-eating marsupials are threatened by a deadly transmissible cancer – but the discovery of what makes some animals resistant could save them

Integumentary System
Image: Suat Eman FreeDigitalPhotos.net The integumentary system consists of the largest organ in the body, the skin. This extraordinary organ system protects the internal structures of the body from damage,...

Few Studies Compare the Efficacy of Medical Treatments
The forward momentum of medical progress is manifest, it could be argued, in the $50 billion spent in 2008 on pharmaceutical research and development in the quest to bring new drugs to market. But little scientific or governmental infrastructure exists to ensure that each new treatment is actually an improvement over existing therapies--and to tease out what therapies are best for which patients.

Message to Mosquitoes: Urine Trouble
You know how uncomfortable it feels when you really have to go to the bathroom? And you have to hold it in? If researchers get their way, disease-carrying mosquitoes will spend their last moments being that uncomfortable. Cornell University scientists [Peter M. Piermarini, et al] have been trying to disrupt the life cycle of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread dengue fever. The mosquitoes pick up the virus when they feed on one human and transmit it in their saliva to their next victim.

There’s no vaccine for dengue, and no fully protective treatment. So the only recourse has been to figure out how to best kill the mosquitoes themselves. Here’s where urination comes in. When the mosquito takes a blood meal, it has to get rid of fluid and salt so it doesn’t overload--and die. Scientists have discovered a key protein in the renal tubes of these mosquitoes that helps with the necessary excretion. Blocking the protein keeps a mosquito from urinating. [See http://bit.ly/defrih ] Without whizzing, they become too heavy to fly away. The researchers say they’re thus more likely to be swatted or eaten. So look for new insecticides that stop mosquitoes from lightening their liquid load. With fatal results.

Chimps Talk with Their Hands
The origins of language have long been a mystery, but mounting evidence hints that our unique linguistic abilities could have evolved from gestural communication in our ancestors. Such gesturing may also explain why most people are right-handed.

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center recently ex­am­ined captive chimpanzees and found that most of them predominantly used their right hand when communicating with one another--for example, when greeting another chimp by extending an arm. The animals did not show this hand preference for noncommunicative actions, such as wiping their noses. Such lateralized hand use suggests that chimpanzees have a system in their left brain hemisphere that is coupled to the production of com­municative gestures, says study author William Hopkins. The same cerebral hemisphere is host to most language functions in humans, which hints that an ancestral gestural system could have been the precursor for language, he says.

Why is talking with gestures easier than talking without them?
Why is talking along with gestures so much easier than trying to talk without gesturing? -- Lionel Halvorsen, Cornith, Tex.

End-of-Days Danger
I don’t know how many e-mails I have received from children who are terrified that 2012 will somehow involve the end of life as we know it, all because of an unfounded fringe religious prophecy that has received mass-market exposure with the release of a recent Hollywood movie. I have tried to reassure those children (and not a few adults) that this date represents nothing more cosmically special than the year of the next presidential election.

Having said that, however, I just realized there might be a genuine connection between 2012 and an end-of-days menace!

Invasion of the Drones: Unmanned Aircraft Take Off in Polar Exploration
A multinational, robotic air corps is quietly invading the polar regions of the earth. Some catapult from ships; some launch from running pickup trucks; and some take off the old-fashioned way, from icy airstrips. The aircraft range from remote-controlled propeller planes--of the type found at Toys “R” Us--to sophisticated, high-altitude jets. All are specially outfitted, not with weapons but with scientific instruments.

Unmanned aircraft have made headlines in the mountains of Afghanistan, but the technology has quickly trickled down to scientists seeking a less expensive, safer way to study the earth’s poles. Researchers have begun to put unmanned aerial systems, or UASs, to a variety of tasks, from monitoring the ozone layer to counting seal populations. Thanks to lower costs and improved technologies, “it’s absolutely exploded in the past couple of years,” says Elizabeth Weatherhead, who is an environmental scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

One's Enough: People Who Donate a Kidney Live Just as Long as Those Who Don't
Every 30 minutes, all of the blood in our bodies is filtered through two fist-size kidneys. But diseases such as diabetes can cause them to fail, leading to a build-up of chemicals in the blood that without dialysis (mechanical blood filtration) or a kidney transplant would be fatal. And the wait for a new kidney can be long, unless someone you know is willing to give one of theirs to you.

Safety issues loom as humanoid invasion approaches
Robots are coming out of their industrial cages and into our lives, prompting engineers to search out new kinds of safety features

Women with good genes may have more sexual partners
Female students with a genetically diverse immune system said they had sex with more people than their peers did

Pristine DNA discovered in fossilized eggshells
By Matt Kaplan

Extremely well-preserved DNA discovered in the fossilized eggshells of extinct bird species suggests that they could be a source of ancient genetic material for sequencing efforts.

Eggshells are commonly found at fossil sites worldwide.

Fighting aliens with aliens: U.K. imports insect species to tackle invasive plant
For the first time in U.K. history, an alien species (meaning one that is not native to the area) will be let loose in the kingdom to combat the growth of another species--also introduced.

PET project: Using organic catalysts to make more biodegradable plastics
Whereas most discarded plastic water and beverage bottles (those imprinted with a number 1 within a triangular arrow) can be recycled , the resulting second-generation plastic is generally unusable for making new plastic bottles. This is because the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) thermoplastic polymer used to make the original bottles is often made with the help of metal oxide or metal hydroxide catalysts that linger in the recycled material and weaken it over time.

Storing megawatts: Liquid-metal batteries and electricity
Making aluminum requires a lot of electricity. That's because the metal bonds tightly to oxygen and it takes a lot of energy to break that bond. In essence, the process of making aluminum is a giant battery with the silvery metal being reduced to purity at the cathode while oxygen bonds with the carbon anode to make, you guessed it, CO2. It takes roughly 15 kilowatt-hours of electricity to make just one kilogram of aluminum via electrolysis.

Smokestash Industry: ARPA-E Seeks Breakthroughs in Carbon Capture Technology
WASHINGTON--Every second, our bodies capture carbon dioxide in our tissues, transport it via the blood, and dump it in the lungs from where it is exhaled. This unconscious process is yet another way humans contribute to the accumulation of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere--albeit in a minuscule volume compared with burning fossil fuels . The key to this metabolic process is an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase and it's efficiency at capturing and releasing CO2 is what human engineers want to mimic at the power plant scale.

Liquid Metal Battery Stores Large Amounts of Electricity
Funding from ARPA-E could allow researchers to take a liquid metal battery from a 'shot glass size cell to a pizza box cell.'

Seeking Transformational Energy Technologies
[ This special issue podcast is longer than the usual 60 seconds. ]

Last week, the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for energy held its inaugural conference in Washington, D.C.--a direct response to a growing sense that the U.S. is losing its technology lead when it comes to the race for cleaner ways to produce and use energy. "We have a Sputnik moment right now. We are losing our technology leadership and we are falling behind."

Trichodesmium : The world's most famous nitrogen fixer
Editor's Note: Journalist and crew member Kathryn Eident and scientist Jeremy Jacquot are traveling on board the RV Atlantis on a monthlong voyage to sample and study nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, among other research projects. This is the sixth blog post detailing this ongoing voyage of discovery for ScientificAmerican.com .

Imagine you’re in space, floating high above the Earth. Picture the world’s oceans, glimmering sapphire under the heat of the sun and the protection of the ozone layer. Look closer, there’s a patch of brown in the middle of all that blue. It’s a bloom of phytoplankton called Trichodesmium , a “world famous” nitrogen fixer.

Can Aging Nuclear Reactors Be Safe?
On Nov. 4, 2008, two divers were cleaning sludge and silt from an entry bay for water pumps that serve Constellation Energy Nuclear Group's Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant near Oswego, N.Y.

In the midst of the operation, the diver and the hose tender shifted their positions and the diver lost control of a plastic suction hose, leaving its trailing section in front of one of the water pipe entries. The force of the water flow, at 9,000 gallons a minute, severed a section of hose and sucked it into one of the system's pumps, fouling it. As the team tried to cope with that problem, a smaller piece of the unattended free end of the hose was pulled into a second water pump, according to an inspection report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission .