In 1988 an associate professor started growing cultures of Escherichia coli . Twenty-one years and 40,000 generations of bacteria later, Richard Lenski , who is now a professor of microbial ecology at Michigan State University, reveals new details about the differences between adaptive and random genetic changes during evolution. [More]

Can social networking sites help people make wise health decisions? A new study says it depend on people's willingness to take action on the information they gain from the sites.

There is a scientific consensus that safe geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste is technically feasible, while public acceptance has still not been achieved in most Member States. Researchers have analyzed the state of the art of science, technology and procedures needed across the EU for implementation. They have identified no major conceptual or research gap for the host rocks and repository systems envisaged, namely those in clays, hard rocks and salt.

Researchers have found that patients with severe cases of the H1N1 virus are at risk for developing severe complications, including pulmonary emboli, according to a new study.

Aircraft maintenance will be easier in future, with sensors monitoring the aircraft skin. If they discover any dents or cracks they will send a radio message to a monitoring unit. The energy needed for this will be obtained from temperature differences.

Molecular scientists have discovered a new, fast mechanism by which cells communicate change -- for example their location during spreading of a cancer in the human body -- to adjacent cells. The discovery sheds new light on cell behaviour and could lead to the development on new drugs to combat diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer's disease.

Suppose you are at a busy playground and you hear an 11-year-old using language he didn't learn on Sesame Street. There are plenty of other adults around, but, apparently, not this child's parents. Do you intervene? Does anyone?

A research team from China investigated the effects of Chrysanthemum indicum extract (CIE) on inhibition of proliferation and on apoptosis, and the underlying mechanisms, in a human hepatocellular carcinoma MHCC97H cell line. They found CIE exerted a significant apoptotic effect through a mitochondrial pathway and arrested the cell cycle by regulation of cell cycle-related proteins in MHCC97H cells without an effect on normal cells.

The solar system, as defined by the heliosphere, the region of the sun's influence, may have a quite different shape than scientists had thought.

For the first time, researchers have looked at the need for every gene in a bacterial cell in just one experiment. They showed that Salmonella Typhi -- which every year infects 22 million people and causes 220,000 deaths -- needs only 356 genes for survival: 4162 genes are not essential. The method, which harnesses next-generation sequencing technologies, will aid the search for weaknesses in bacterial armories, allowing researchers to seek treatments to target those genes.