Physorg

Europe slapped a summons on German chemical giant BASF on Monday after a "blunder" allowed seed from a new genetically modified potato to remain in a field in Sweden.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover that will be on Mars two years from now, has been flexing the robotic arm that spacecraft workers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached to the rover body in August 2010.

(AP) -- It's hard to predict which pills will best lower which patient's high blood pressure, but researchers are hunting ways to better personalize therapy - perhaps even using a blood test.

A basic requirement for growth and life of a multicellular organism is the ability of its cells to divide. A protein complex, the so-called centrosome, plays a major role during cell division. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, together with colleagues at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and at the Leibniz Institute for Age Research - Fritz Lipmann Institute in Jena have investigated the functions of the different centrosomal components. The researchers now present the centrosome's components and their functions. Their work extends our knowledge of regulation of cell division and opens the door to new investigations into cancer development. (EMBO Journal, September 3rd 2010)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Decades of whaling and fishing for the largest species have altered the ability of oceans to store and sequester carbon, according to a team of marine researchers from the University of Maine, the University of British Columbia and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI).

(AP) -- The Balzan Foundation says its prize for the biology of stem cells has gone to a Japanese researcher for discovering a way to transform adult cells into cells with the characteristics of stem cells.

Psychological violence during pregnancy by an intimate partner is strongly associated with postnatal depression, independently of physical or sexual violence, according to a paper by researchers in Bristol and Brazil, published today in The Lancet. This finding has important policy implications since most social policies focus on prevention and treatment of physical violence.

At the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (Valencia, Spain), Imec presents several large-area silicon solar cells with a conversion efficiency above 19%.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Earth's magnetic poles flip around every 200,000 years or so, with north becoming south and vice versa. Normally, the process takes 4-5,000 years and it ought to be impossible for the flip to be much faster, if models of the Earth's core are correct, but now for the second time evidence has been found of a flip that appears to have taken only a few years.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study has found that health-related disability has a much larger impact on psychological distress than a diagnosis of cancer by itself.

The sickle cell trait is known for its protective effect against developing malaria. But new research warns that children with sickle cell anaemia are more likely to die from severe malaria.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new turn in the debate over explanations for the odd features of LB1 -- the specimen number of the only skull found in Liang Bua Cave on the Indonesian island of Flores and sometimes called "the hobbit" -- is further evidence of a continued streak of misleading science regarding the development of a new species, according to researchers.

(AP) -- The vaccine used to contain the recent swine flu pandemic was effective, but health authorities will need to ramp up the speed and volume of production during the next global outbreak, a World Health Organization official said Monday.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Yale and McGill University scientists have identified a protein that is critical in fighting mosquito-borne West Nile Virus in mice. This finding could have therapeutic implications for controlling the potentially deadly virus in humans. The study appears in the Advance Online Publication of Nature Immunology.

(AP) -- UNICEF says more than 300 people have died in the West African nation of Cameroon from the country's worst cholera outbreak in 20 years.

(AP) -- Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Conservationists would save more whales from the harpoon if the whale-watching public and industry were willing to pay a levy that could be used to persuade those countries currently engaged in whaling to stop, says Queensland University of Technology green economist Associate Professor Clevo Wilson.

The recession is finally taking its toll on national, state and local unionization rates, according to UCLA's annual report on organized labor.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Smaller and smarter: this is the aim of research in the quest for ever faster electronic devices smaller in size but capable of performing more complicated tasks. Devices consisting of the smallest possible components, molecular parts, have emerged as the answer.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The yellow-bellied three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis) is one of only three reptiles known to have different methods of reproduction in different places. In the coastal areas of New South Wales (NSW), near Sydney, Australia, the skink lays eggs, while in the northern highlands of NSW, it tends to favor giving birth to live young. Scientists say we are witnessing evolution in action, with the skink half-way in its transformation from an egg-layer to a bearer of live young.