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Magnetotactic bacteria are the smallest organisms to use a biological compass but exactly how these bacteria create their cellular magnets is a mystery. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have used genome sequencing to unlock new secrets about these magnetic microbes that could accelerate biotechnology and nanotechnology research.

Language networks are built based on different principles and, for the most part, are designed to be scale-free.  Global statistical properties of language networks are independent of linguistic structure and typology so do linguistic structures really influence the statistical properties of a language network? More concretely, does semantic or conceptual network have the same properties as a syntactic one?Researchers at the Institute of Applied Linguistics at Communication University of China say they have shown that dynamic semantic network of human language is also small-world and scale-free but it is different from syntactic network in hierarchical structure and node's degree correlation.

Despite the overwhelming abundance of water on the planet and in our lives, the molecular structure of water has remained a mystery.In all, water exhibits 66 known anomalies, including a strangely varying density, large heat capacity and high surface tension. Contrary to other "normal" liquids, which become denser as they get colder, water reaches its maximum density at about 4° Celsius. Above and below this temperature, water is less dense; this is why, for example, lakes freeze from the surface down. Water also has an unusually large capacity to store heat, which stabilizes the temperature of the oceans, and a high surface tension, which allows insects to walk on water, droplets to form and trees to transport water to great heights.

There are many hypotheses about the early days of black holes.  Researchers writing in The Astrophysical Journal Letters have undertaken simulations using data taken from observations of the cosmic background radiation—the earliest view of the structure of the universe - and then applied the basic laws that govern the interaction of matter. In doing so, they say they have allowed the early universe in their simulation to evolve as they believe it did in reality.

Acupuncture has been used in East-Asian medicine for thousands of years to treat pain and some people swear by it, but if and how it works at the cellular level is largely unknown.Using brain imaging, a University of Michigan study says they have evidence that traditional Chinese acupuncture affects the brain's long-term ability to regulate pain by activating the body's natural painkillers. Acupuncture needs a boost due to recent controversy over large studies showing that sham acupuncture is as effective as real acupuncture in reducing chronic pain. 

If you're the family member of a critical care patient, you prefer doctors to keep their opinions on life support decisions to themselves, according to new research that challenges a long-held belief in the critical care community that caregivers want advice on the matter . The research found that surrogates are virtually split when it comes to how much guidance they want to receive from physicians in making end-of-life medical choices on behalf of critically ill patients, according to lead author of the paper, Douglas B. White, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

A group of University of Utah scientists say they developed a "molecular condom" that could help protect women against AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas.It's a vaginal gel that turns semisolid in the presence of semen, trapping AIDS virus particles in a microscopic mesh so they can't infect vaginal cells.A study testing the behavior of the new gel and showing how it traps AIDS-causing HIV particles will be published online later this week in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The sex hormone estrogen tempers the killing activity of immune cells called cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), which are known to attack tumor cells and cells infected by viruses.Estrogen plays a critical role in the regulation of growth and the development of cells and is also crucial for cell-type-specific gene expression in various tissues. Deregulation of this system results in breast and ovarian cancer.  The key player in this process is a cytotoxic T cell molecule known as EBAG9. Breast and ovarian tumors are treated with drugs such as tamoxifen. Researchers suggest that this drug inhibits tumor growth by blocking the estrogen receptors of the tumor cells. However, up to now it has been unclear what effect this inhibition has on the immune system. 

Methane was discovered on Mars in 2004, meaning volcanic activity continues to generate heat below the martian surface or, if you are exceptionally kooky, that life there is generating it.When Mars Express arrived in orbit around the red planet, Vittorio Formisano, Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario CNR, Rome, and the rest of the instrument team using planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) began taking data and saw a puzzling signal; along with atmospheric gases such as carbon monoxide and water vapor, they saw methane.   

When did executions go from being functional example-setting to being more humane in method?Annulla Linders, a University of Cincinnati sociologist, examined newspaper accounts of 19th and 20th century Ohio executions to put more 'scientific' executions in context.  Linders used two late 19th century executions to illustrate the transition from hanging to electrocution and determined that central to the switch was the audience of executions - including journalists and physicians. 

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, have performed sophisticated laser measurements to detect the subtle effects of one of nature's most elusive forces - the "weak interaction", and in the process also found the largest effect of the weak interaction ever observed in an atom.

Higher education has helped women narrow the wage gap but there is one college-related factor that has becoming increasingly important in perpetuating that gap, according to new research.And that factor is their college major.   Women dominate the social sciences, for example, so by not moving more into hard sciences, the numbers are not normalizing across all fields.   Women at the higher levels of research and in disciplines like engineering show no modern wage gap.