The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar. Hachette Book Group, 2010

Digital Revolution Pathologists are traditionally seen as being detached from everyday clinical practice, which explains why we were so pleasantly surprised when we came across the interesting article “ A Better Lens on Disease ,” by Mike May. Even before the digital revolution, pathologists had developed rudimentary ways (mainly photographs) to capture histological images and submit them to one another for a second opinion. Nowadays such a procedure is adopted usefully at small hospitals in developing countries to refer unusual or difficult cases to internationally recognized European or U.S. pathology departments.

By Rhiannon Smith

As the first findings start to arrive from the Hubble Space Telescope since its repair last year, researchers are shedding new light on one of our nearest and most exciting supernova neighbours as they resume tracking its explosive history.

Supernovae form when a massive star explodes at the end of its life. [More]



Hubble Space Telescope - Star - Supernova - Astronomy - Observatories

By Eugenie Samuel Reich

Supersolids--bizarre quantum solids that flow effortlessly, as they have no friction--have come back into the limelight. [More]



Physics - People - Theoretical - Quantum Computing - Quantum Mechanics

Marine worms might seem like lowly, slow-witted creatures, but new gene mapping shows that we might share an ancient brainy ancestor with them. [More]



Gene - Annelid - Cerebral cortex - Common descent - Worms

When Brazilian defender Roberto Carlos struck a powerful free-kick from about 30 meters out in a 1997 international match against France, he could not have known that scientists would still be discussing his feat more than a dozen years later. Indeed, he could not even have known that the ball would improbably find the back of the net . But find the net it did, swinging well wide of a wall of French defenders, hooking viciously to the left, and glancing off the inside of the goalpost. The French goalkeeper could only turn and watch in apparent disbelief as the ball came to rest in his goal. [More]



Roberto Carlos - Physics - France - Association football - Goalkeeper

It likely comes as no surprise that many common household chemicals and medical products as well as industrial and agricultural chemicals, may irritate human skin temporarily or, worse, cause permanent, corrosive burns. In order to prevent undue harm regulators in the U.S. and beyond require safety testing of many substances to identify their potential hazards and to ensure that the appropriate warning label appears on a product. Traditionally, such skin tests have been done on live animals--although in recent decades efforts to develop humane approaches , along with ones that are more relevant to people have resulted in new models based on laboratory-grown human skin.

The most recent chapter of this ongoing effort was written on July 22 when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)--an international group that, among other things, provides guidelines to its 32-member countries on methods to assess chemical safety--officially approved three commercially available in vitro models of human skin for use in chemical testing. Specifically, the new guideline ( OECD Test No. 439 ) stipulates that the models can serve as an alternative to animals in tests for skin irritation, one of several human health endpoints for which chemicals are tested. Similar 3-D models were approved for corrosion tests in 2004, leaving many hopeful that soon it may be possible to the assess the full spectrum of a chemical's effects on human skin--from irritation to corrosion--without using live animals.

We all know that elephants aren’t really scared of mice. But a new study shows that they’re really not crazy about something even smaller: ants. In fact, elephants dislike ants so much that they avoid acacia trees that harbor the tiny, six-legged nectar-suckers. [More]



Ant - Biology - Flora and Fauna - Animalia - Insecta

Scientists have long sought to understand the biological basis of thought. In the second century A.D., physician and philosopher Claudius Galen held that the brain was a gland that secreted fluids to the body via the nerves--a view that went unchallenged for centuries. In the late 1800s clinical researchers tied specific brain areas to dedicated functions by correlating anatomical abnormalities in the brain after death with behavioral or cognitive impairments. French surgeon Pierre Paul Broca, for example, found that a region on the brain’s left side controls speech. In the first half of the 20th century, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield mapped the brain’s functions by electrically stimulating different places in conscious patients during neurosurgery, triggering vivid memories, localized body sensations, or movement of an arm or toe.

In recent years new noninvasive ways of viewing the human brain in action have helped neuroscientists trace the anatomy of thought and behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, for instance, researchers can see which areas of the brain “light up” when people perform simple movements such as lifting a finger or more complex mental leaps such as recognizing someone or making a moral judgment. These images reveal not only how the brain is divided functionally but also how the different areas work together while people go about their daily activities. Some investigators are using the technology in an attempt to detect lies and even to predict what kinds of items people will buy; others are seeking to understand the brain alterations that occur in disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, autism and dementia.