Unlike humans, zebrafish are able to regenerate amputated appendages.
The search for the holy grail of regenerative medicine — the ability to “grow back” a perfect body part when one is lost to injury or disease — has been under way for years, yet the steps involved in this seemingly magic process are still poorly understood.

the Mercury Surface

A NASA spacecraft gliding over the battered surface of Mercury for the second time this year has revealed more previously unseen real estate on the innermost planet. The probe also has produced several science firsts and is returning hundreds of new photos and measurements of the planet’s surface, atmosphere and magnetic field.

Illustration of rat with spinal injury. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California
The first human embryonic stem cell treatment approved by the FDA for human testing has been shown to restore limb function in rats with neck spinal cord injuries — a finding that could expand the clinical trial to include people with cervical damage.

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google’s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.
In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once [...]

The Sands of the Sahara desert have finally told a tale of loss of mythical proportions.

“The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology’s biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.
Bronze weapons, a [...]

This image represents “copolymer micelles,” tiny drug-delivery spheres that could be used in a new approach for repairing damaged nerve fibers in spinal cord injuries. The bottom graphs show data indicating damaged spinal cord tissue recovered its “action potential,” or ability to transmit signals, after treatment with the micelles.
Researchers at Purdue University have discovered a [...]

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captured this infrared image of a giant halo of very fine dust around the young star HR 8799.
Before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today, they wiggled and jostled about like unsettled children. Now, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has found a young star with evidence [...]

The Mojave Desert. As the climate gets warmer, arid soils lose nitrogen as gas, reports a new Cornell study. That could lead to deserts with even less plant life than they sustain today, say the researchers.

As the climate gets warmer, arid soils lose nitrogen as gas, reports a new Cornell study. That could lead to [...]

Artist’s rendering of viruses. Scientists have developed synthetic molecules capable of enhancing the body’s immune response to HIV and HIV-infected cells, as well as to prostate cancer cells.
Researchers at Yale University have developed synthetic molecules capable of enhancing the body’s immune response to HIV and HIV-infected cells, as well as to prostate cancer cells. Their [...]

White-faced Capuchin (Cebus capucinus) checking its nails
Research at the universities of Liverpool and Oxford into the finger length of primate species has revealed that cooperative behavior is linked to exposure to hormone levels in the womb.

New evidence from Chandra suggests that the neutron star at the center of the Cas A supernova remnant has an ultra-thin carbon atmosphere.
Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding [...]

Artist’s rendering of a human fetus growing inside the womb.
From their very first days, newborns’ cries already bear the mark of the language their parents speak, reveals a new study published online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The findings suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be [...]

Twilight, a Thoroughbred horse from Cornell University.
An international team of researchers has decoded the genome of the domestic horse Equus caballus, revealing a genome structure with remarkable similarities to humans and more than one million genetic differences across a variety of horse breeds. In addition to shedding light on a key part of the mammalian [...]

This figure represents four cells, four purified CD34+ (the CD34+ cell population comprises true hematopoetic stem cell) from patient P1.
A strategy that combines gene therapy with blood stem cell therapy may be a useful tool for treating a fatal brain disease, French researchers have found.

Polymorphic mimicry in Heliconius cydno alithea in western Ecuador, where the white form mimics the white species Heliconius sapho and the yellow form mimics the yellow species Heliconius eleuchia.
Breaking up may actually not be hard to do, say scientists who’ve found a population of tropical butterflies that may be on its way to a split [...]

Hemigraphis alternata, or purple waffle plant, one of the highest ratedornamentals for removing indoor air pollutants.

Air quality in homes, offices, and other indoor spaces is becoming a major health concern, particularly in developed countries where people often spend more than 90% of their time indoors. Surprisingly, indoor air has been reported to be as much [...]

New data from rats with head-mounted microscopes shed light on how we put the world together seamlessly while we move around.
By building a tiny microscope small enough to be carried around on a rats` head, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, have found a way to study the complex [...]

C. elegans.
If worms are any indication, all the sugar in your diet could spell much more than obesity and type 2 diabetes. Researchers reporting in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, say it might also be taking years off your life.

Body maps in our brain may influence how we perceive our physical bodies — for example, if there is a lot of brain area associated with our right arm, we will view it being as longer compared to our left arm.
There are areas in the brain devoted to our arms, legs, and various parts of [...]

Eating a meal quickly, as compared to slowly, curtails the release of hormones in the gut that induce feelings of being full, according to new research.
According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), eating a meal quickly, as compared to slowly, curtails the release [...]

Want to have a method that your car can generate power as it drives along the road? Well, check out the Carbon Zero road block system. This concept uses blocks on the road, and as you drive over these blocks, the pressure from your car pushes the blocks down, creating kinetic energy. N-type silicon and [...]

This representative-color figure shows the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission observed by VERITAS coming from the Cigar Galaxy, also known as Messier 82.
Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays — subatomic particles (mostly protons) that zip through space at nearly the speed of light. The most energetic cosmic rays hit with the [...]

New research confirms that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world’s oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed [...]

Nazca Lines in the Peruvian Desert.
An ancient South American civilisation which disappeared around 1,500 years ago helped to cause its own demise by damaging the fragile ecosystem that held it in place, a study has found.

Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) shows that an intense star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud named 30 Doradus is also a source of diffuse gamma rays.
Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called “starburst” galaxies, plus a [...]