Science

Smokers might get a future reprieve on the damage that cigarettes do to their lungs. Australian scientists have successfully protected mice lungs against the inflammatory effects of smoking, which can lead to health problems such as emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). But the researchers still gave stern warning that this does nothing to alleviate cancer risks, The Register reports.

Huge filaments or threads of interstellar dust link to our Milky Way galaxy, seen as a bright pink horizontal in a new image taken by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite.

As debate continues to swirl around the Federal Government’s controversial proposal to impose a mandatory Internet filter, Microsoft has released some interesting findings of a survey into the way parents regulate their children’s behaviour on the Internet. The short of it is this: Parents aren’t doing enough.

According to the survey, which sampled 1,000 people:

• 65 percent of Australian parents do not take any precautions to protect their children online.
  

Catching a ball is a skill that eludes many people. Some of us know intuitively how to catch a ball, be it in a game of tennis, cricket, handball or basketball; the rest of us live with the secret shame of having been labelled ‘butterfingers’ at least once in our lives.

When we think of quantum mechanics, we often think of the very small and the very theoretical. Take Schrodinger's Cat for instance; it's an interesting thought exercise but not an experiment one would want to actually execute in his or her apartment. But a researcher at UC Santa Barbara has brought quantum systems down from the chalkboard and into plain sight, creating the first mechanical device large enough to be observed with the naked eye that behaves as a true quantum system, bridging the divide between the macro world of mechanical systems and the micro domain of quantum physics.

Algae has helped create the atmosphere, played a role in populating the oceans and even produced biofuels so that we might pollute the atmosphere and the oceans a tiny bit less. Now, a team of researchers is coaxing therapeutic pharmaceuticals out of the hardy little organisms, in a process that could eventually produce biologic drugs that are a few orders of magnitude cheaper than existing drugs.

The future of community bike systems may not require much pedaling at all; Sanyo has just installed two "Solar Parking Lots" that serve as solar charging stations for 100 Eneloop electric hybrid bicycles in Setagaya, Tokyo.

Unfortunately for anyone looking to terraform Mars, a new study shows that powerful waves of solar wind periodically strip the Red Planet of its atmosphere. Scientists had known for years that Mars has atmosphere troubles, but only by analyzing new data from he Mars Express spacecraft were they able to identify the special double solar waves as the specific cause.

A former Pfizer scientist is suing the pharmaceuticals giant after alleging she contracted an artificial, HIV-like, virus created by a colleague. In her lawsuit, Becky McClain claims Pfizer unlawfully dismissed her while she suffered bouts of paralysis brought on by the man-made virus. Pfizer denies these accusations, and says McClain simply didn't come to work, and only linked her problems to engineered-disease exposure after she was fired.

Scientists have long been stymied by human regenerative healing -- that is, wholesale regrowth of, say, a severed limb -- an ability inherent in some species but lost on humans. But new research suggests the ability to regenerate isn't based on something newts and flatworms have that we don't; rather, it's something we do have that's keeping us from regenerating tissues.

Chinese rail passengers already zip between cities on trains traveling three times faster than the average train in the States, and a 217-mph line linking Wuhan and Guangzhou will soon be the fastest train on Earth. But not content with screaming-fast trains linking cities within its borders, China now plans to extend its high-speed network all the way to London with a rail line that will fly through 17 countries at speeds reaching 200 miles per hour.

It’s like a Frankenstein’s monster of two of Australia’s favourite soap box issues: 350 Australian health scientists have taken up the cause to urge politicians and the public at large to recognise the link between climate change and obesity. Yes, that’s right – obesity and climate change.

The CSIRO and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology have issued a joint statement to that describes the current state of Australia’s climate, illustrating that climate change isn’t so much as ‘coming in the near future’, but rather that it is here now. Some of the key observations include:

• Highly variable rainfall across the country, with substantial increases in rainfall in northern and central parts of Australia, as well as significant decreases across much of southern and eastern Australia.
  

We do a lot of Hubble gawking here. Arguably NASA's most enduring mission, the telescope has provided humans with the deepest possible look into the corners of the universe and papered many a desktop background. It's beamed back so much beauty that it's easy to take it for granted.

But Hubble 3D reminds us how miraculous a thing the Hubble telescope truly is. It is the apotheosis, the pinnacle of Hubblegasms. It's IMAX 3D in space.

While scientists have become rather adept at transforming generic skin cells into specialized organ cells, crafting the organs themselves has proven far more difficult. Since the 3-D architecture of most organs is as important to their function as their cellular makeup, 2-D cell cultures are not very useful for building a replacement heart from scratch. To solve that problem, most organ makers create a scaffolding for the cells to grow on.

For a team of researchers at Rice University, even a biodegradable scaffolding wasn't good enough. By injecting cells with a metallic gel, the researchers have succeeded in suspending cultured cells in a three-dimensional magnetic field. With this magnetic scaffolding, organs can be grown in the right shape, and with no foreign material.