NASA 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.

A study at Örebro University in Sweden indicates that mobile phones and other cordless telephones have a biological effect on the brain. It is still too early to say if any health risks are involved, but medical researcher Fredrik Söderqvist recommends caution in the use of these phones, above all among children and adolescents. Few children who regularly use mobile phones use a headset often or always, even though the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority recommends this.

A team of mathematicians from the Engineering and Architecture Schools of the University of Seville has created a method to design underground lines whereby a city’s historical buildings are unaffected. The results of the study, which has just been published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society, offer possible solutions for the future underground line 2 in Seville.

It is currently estimated that natural gas resources will be exhausted in 130 years; however, those reserves where extraction is cost-effective will only flow for another 60 years or so. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research and at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces might be helping to make it worthwhile to tap into previously unused resources. They have developed a catalyst that converts methane to methanol in a simple and efficient process. Methanol can be transported from locations where it is not economical to build a pipeline. (Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., September 1, 2009)

AMES, Iowa – James Oliver picked up an Xbox game controller, looked up to a video screen and used the device’s buttons and joystick to fly through a patient’s chest cavity for an up-close look at the bottom of the heart.

Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees.

A new study has discovered for the first time that dark chocolate rich in flavanols may provide significant protection from the harmful effects of ultraviolet light.

The intimate and spirited quarters of a stadium offer perhaps the most ideal venues to experience an athletic event.

Despite their fearsome fangs, male sabertoothed cats may have been less aggressive than many of their feline cousins, says a new study of male-female size differences in extinct big cats.

Common experience tells us that particular scents of childhood can leave quite an impression, for better or for worse. Now, researchers reporting the results of a brain imaging study online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that first scents really do enjoy a “privileged” status in the brain.