NASA has made a series of critical strides toward the development of new nuclear reactors the size of a trash can that could power a human outpost on the moon or Mars. Three recent tests at different NASA centers and a national lab have successfully demonstrated key technologies required for compact fission-based nuclear power plants for human settlements on other worlds.

An investigative drug deprived non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells of their ability to survive too long and multiply too fast, according to an early study.

If the climate is not quite right, birds will up and move rather than stick around and sweat it out, according to a new study. The findings reveal that most of the bird species studied in California's Sierra Nevada mountains have adjusted to climate change over the last century by moving to sites with the temperature and precipitation conditions they favored.

Researchers have identified an enzyme that helps make tuberculosis resistant to a human's natural defense system. They have also found a method to possibly neutralize that enzyme, which may someday lead to a cure for tuberculosis -- a contagious disease that kills 1.5 to 2 million people worldwide annually.

The human brain is made up of 100 billion neurons -- live wires that must be kept in delicate balance to stabilize the world's most magnificent computing organ. Too much excitement and the network will slip into an apoplectic, uncomprehending chaos. Too much inhibition and it will flatline. A new mathematical model describes how the trillions of interconnections among neurons could maintain a stable but dynamic relationship that leaves the brain sensitive enough to respond to stimulation without veering into a blind seizure.

Not all that long ago, hybrid vehicles were still really exotic. Now, you see them more and more frequently on our roads. However, hybrid cars are not mass-produced as their production costs are still relatively high. A researcher has now developed a new concept that integrates power electronic functions and an electric motor, which could reduce the costs of producing hybrid cars.

Among individuals with mild cognitive impairment, often considered a transitional state between normal cognitive function and Alzheimer's dementia, those who have more difficulties performing routine activities appear more likely to progress quickly to dementia, according to a new report.

A team of University of Hawai'i at Manoa researchers led by Ralf Kaiser, physical chemist at UH Manoa, unraveled the chemical evolution of the orange-brownish colored atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, the only solar system body besides Venus and Earth with a solid surface and thick atmosphere.

A biomedical engineer has spent the last four years building a better imager for preclincal studies. He can now disassemble a specimen and reassemble it into a three-dimensional digital model that gives details down to single cells and their exact location.

Rigid, custom-fit foam pieces like those that keep computer monitors firmly in place inside cardboard boxes during shipping could be made with eco-friendly starch from potatoes, wheat or corn, instead of from petroleum, according to a research plant physiologist. Opting for starch in place of petroleum-derived polystyrene would lessen America's dependence on petroleum.