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In all the talk about using skin cells to create pluripotent stem cells that don't need human embryonic destruction,  dental and tissue engineering researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences have gone the other way and used human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to generate complex tissues that mimic human skin and the oral mucosa (the moist tissue that lines the inside of the mouth).Their proof-of-concept study is published in Tissue Engineering Part A.

When we were kids, you could do stupid things and, if you absolutely needed them to be left behind, you moved away and never spoke to your old friends again.   Now stupid things end up on YouTube.  Forever.What if you don't want your college-era rants showing up in a job interview?  University of Washington researchers say they have developed a way to make online information expire. After a set time period, electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages would automatically self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all Web sites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers. Not even the sender could retrieve them.

Don't get Michael Schumacher or Jeff Gordon on the phone yet but we could one day be driving on tires made from trees.Wood science researchers at Oregon State University say they could cost less, perform better and save on fuel and energy, though has any researcher not said that exact same thing about every R&D project they are involved in?  

Epidemiological studies have shown that some oral contraceptives are less effective at preventing pregnancy in obese women until an 'effective blood concentration' has been reached, meaning there is a 'window' where the contraceptive will not be effective in heavier women. With estimates  that up to 30 percent of adults in the U.S. are obese, this could be important.   Fixing contraceptives is an easier path than telling people to eat less while simultaneously telling them that society's unrealistic body images should be resisted.

Researchers writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say they have discovered that the sea lamprey, which emerged from jawless fish first appearing 500 million years ago, dramatically remodels its genome. Shortly after a fertilized lamprey egg divides into several cells, the growing embryo discards millions of units of its DNA - one fifth of its genome. 

Mayo Clinic investigators say a proof-of-concept study has demonstrated that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be used to treat heart disease.  iPS cells are stem cells converted from adult stem cells so don't involve the ethical concerns involved in using human embryonic stem cells. In their study, the researchers reprogrammed ordinary fibroblasts, cells that contribute to scars such as those resulting from a heart attack, converting them into stem cells that fix heart damage caused by infarction.This is the first application of iPS-based technology for heart disease therapy. Previously iPS cells have been used on only three other disease models: Parkinson's disease, sickle cell anemia and hemophilia A.

Neanderthals were stoutly-built and human-like and lived at the same time and in the same areas as some modern humans.  But they went extinct.Anthropologists have tried to solve the mystery of Neanderthal's fate since the first fossils were discovered in the small valley of the river Düssel called Neandertal, about 7 miles east of Düsseldorf in Germany.Speculation is they they inter-bred with modern humans or failed to compete for food or resources  or perhaps were even hunted to extinction by humans.

Stars don't die without being noticed and sometimes the results are pretty spectacular.  At the end of its life cycle, a star begins to collapse and throws new material into space, which eventually becomes incorporated into new planets and life.

How evolution can bridge the gap between two discrete physiological states is a question that puzzles biologists and therefore delights critics.Most evolutionary changes happen in tiny increments; an elephant grows a little larger, a giraffe's neck a little longer and if those tiny changes prove advantageous there is a better chance of passing them to the next generation, which might then add its own mutations until you may end up with a huge pachyderm or the stretched neck of a giraffe. But when it comes to traits like the number of wings on an insect or limbs on a primate there is no apparent middle ground. How are these sorts of large evolutionary leaps made?

Ever say someone's actions were 'in their genes'?   That's not only a simplification, according to a group of University of Iowa scientists, scientists who have debated nature versus nurture for centuries are guilty of 'intellectual laziness.'They support evolution but not the idea that genes are a one-way path to specific traits and behaviors. Instead, they argue that development involves a complex system in which genes and environmental factors constantly interact.

Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of a massive object like a star can curve space and time, has been successfully used to predict the bending of starlight by the sun, small shifts in the orbit of the planet Mercury and the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and less coal and petroleum during the same time frame. Natural gas consumption and geothermal energy use remained the same.The estimated U.S. energy use in 2008 equaled 99.2 quadrillion BTUs ("quads"), down from 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007.   A BTU, or British Thermal Unit, is a unit of measurement for energy, and is equivalent to about 1.055 kilojoules.