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EcoBot, a robot that can function completely on its own by collecting waste and converting it into electricity, has an "engine room" that is modeled on the human heart.The artificial device incorporates shape memory alloys - smart materials - and has been tested,The results are in Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
Researchers based at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, a joint venture between the University of the West of England and University of Bristol, have created four generations of EcoBots in the past 10 years, each of which is powered by electricity-generating microbial fuel cells that employ live microorganisms to digest waste organic matter and generate low-level power.

Astronomers viewing the asteroid belt with the Hubble Telescope havd found an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel.
P/2013 P5 is different from all other known asteroids. It looks kind of like a rotating lawn sprinkler.
P/2013 P5 has been ejecting dust periodically for at least five months. Astronomers believe it is possible the asteroid's rotation rate increased to the point where its surface started flying apart. They do not believe the tails are the result of an impact with another asteroid because they have not seen a large quantity of dust blasted into space all at once.

Anyone who has watched water exit a toilet bowl has learned something about fluid dynamics. But you can learn a thing or two by watching the pee that goes into it also.
Boring physicists apply the equations of fluid motion to boring thing like a flag in the wind or river currents, the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Pittsburgh will make things a little more practical for home research.

A team of researchers indicate that the peptide fragment
lactoferricin B25 (LFcinB25)
derived from cow's milk exhibited potent anti-cancer capability against human stomach cancer cell cultures.
They determine that LFcinB25 has potential to be a future therapeutic agent for gastric cancer.
Investigators evaluated the effects of three peptide fragments derived from lactoferricin B, a peptide in milk that has antimicrobial properties. Only one of the fragments, LFcinB25 reduced the survival of human AGS (Gastric Adenocarcinoma) cells in a dose-dependent and time-dependent manner.

Bisphenol A (BPA) in high quantity can harm people, just like almost anything. BPA has been labeled a concern by some because of its ability to be an endocrine disruptor that hijacks the normal responses of hormones. 
While toxicology studies have shown that only very high doses of this chemical affect exposed animals — doses as high as 50 mg/kg/day - by focusing on numerous endpoints a new review says it can find effects not detected in peer-reviewed toxicology studies. The authors of a new paper conclude that endocrine disruptors need to be studied at much lower doses.

Super-Typhoon Haiyan is bringing the maximum sustained winds of a Category 5 hurricane - 195 MPH, making it among the strongest storms ever recorded. Warnings are in effect for the Philippines and Micronesia as Haiyan moves west.
Brian McNoldy, a Senior Research Associate at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, Fla. noted that on the morning (EST) of Nov. 7, "Haiyan has achieved tropical cyclone perfection. It is now estimated at 165kts (190mph), with an 8.0 on the Dvorak scale... the highest possible value."
Warnings in the Philippines have been raise throughout much of the country. In Luzon:

Narcissus, the physically flawless character of Greek mythology, wound up falling in love with his own reflection. It isn't a good role model, and for that reason it is an insult thrown around by amateur therapists even more often than "he has Asperberger's".
 In clinical terms, narcissism comprises at least two largely distinct patterns of behavior associated with different traits: Vulnerable narcissism is marked by excessive self-absorption, introversion and over-sensitivity, while grandiose narcissism is characterized by an extroverted, self-aggrandizing, domineering and flamboyant interpersonal style. 

From gluten allergy and hypoallergenic pets, to avoiding the flu shot because of an egg allergy, there are a lot of common myths and misconceptions about allergies.
The power of the Internet is such that anyone selling a product or a world view that relies on deception or doubt has a ready outlet - while many are just kooky or harmless, some of the misconceptions can be damaging to public health if vaccinations are skipped and extreme dietary avoidances are taken.  An astonishing 72 percent of users turn to Internet sources of suspect value for health information.

A bio patch  bone-regeneration kit uses a collagen platform seeded with particles containing the genes needed for producing bone to regenerate missing or damaged bone - basically, it puts DNA into a nano-sized particle that delivers bone-producing instructions directly into cells.
In experiments, the gene-encoding bio patch successfully regrew bone fully enough to cover skull wounds in test animals. It also stimulated new growth in human bone marrow stromal cells in lab experiments.

Cocaine addicts may become trapped in drug binges not because they are always seeking euphoric highs but rather to avoid emotional lows, says a study in Psychopharmacology.
Rutgers neuroscientists Professor Mark West and doctoral student David Barker dispute that drug addiction occurs because users are always going after the 'high'. Their animal studies found that the initial positive feelings of intoxication are short lived and are quickly replaced by negative emotional responses when drug levels begin to fall. 
If these animal models are a mirror into human addiction, then addicts who learned to use drugs to either achieve a positive emotional state or to relieve a negative one are vulnerable to situations that trigger either behavior.

Black holes, with gravitational forces so strong that not even light can escape them, come in a variety of sizes.
On the smaller end of the scale are the stellar-mass black holes that are formed during the deaths of stars. At the larger end are supermassive black holes, which contain up to one billion times the mass of our sun. Over billions of years, small black holes can slowly grow into the supermassive variety by taking on mass from their surroundings and also by merging with other black holes.
But this slow process can't explain the problem of supermassive black holes existing in the early universe; such black holes would have formed less than one billion years after the Big Bang.
New findings may help to test a model that solves this puzzle.

Researchers writing in 
Science Translational Medicine have shown that monkeys can control the movement of both arms of an avatar - using just their brain activity. 
To enable the monkeys to control the two virtual arms, researchers recorded nearly 500 neurons from multiple areas in both cerebral hemispheres of the animals' brains, the largest number of neurons recorded and reported to date.