Astronomers have imaged a very young brown dwarf, or failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star.

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UCLA scientists have identified for the first time a cell-of-origin for human prostate cancer, a discovery that could result in better predictive and diagnostics tools and the development of new and more effective targeted treatments for the disease.

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Tougher than a bullet-proof vest yet synonymous with beauty and luxury, silk fibers are a masterpiece of nature whose remarkable properties have yet to be fully replicated in the laboratory.

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Increasing the ratio of black carbon to sulfate in the atmosphere increases climate warming, suggests a study conducted by a University of Iowa professor and his colleagues and published in the July 25 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

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Hockey fans likely would assume that body-checking -- intentionally slamming an opponent against the boards -- causes the most injuries in youth ice hockey. But they would be wrong.

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In 1824, three years before he began to publish his famous "double elephant folio" The Birds of America, John James Audubon (1785-1851), the eminent artist of American birds and animals, created a drawing of a running grouse for use in the design for a New Jersey bank note. Although the artist mentions the drawing and the resulting engraved paper money in two separate diary entries, no one has ever been able to locate or identify such an illustration.

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Chemicals present in two rivers in southern Alberta are likely the cause of the feminization of fish say researchers at the University of Calgary who have published results of their study in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

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Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new fluorescent biosensor that could aid in the development of an important class of drugs that target a crucial class of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).

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Heat waves like those that baked the Northeast in July are likely to be more frequent and more intense in the future, with their effects amplified in densely built urban environments like Manhattan, according to climate scientists at The City College of New York (CCNY).

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Public immunization efforts may be much more sensitive than previously realized to small changes in the perceived costs or risks of vaccination, scientists at Harvard University report this week. In some cases, the spread of vaccine avoidance via social networks can make the difference between a minor, localized outbreak and an epidemic four times as large.

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"In laboratory tests, right- and left-handers associate positive ideas like honesty and intelligence with their dominant side of space and negative ideas with their non-dominant side," says Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands. To find out whether people link 'good' with 'dominant' beyond the laboratory, Casasanto and co-author Kyle Jasmin examined spontaneous gestures during positive and negative speech in the final debates of the most recent US presidential elections. The 2004 and 2008 elections involved two right-handers (Kerry, Bush) and two left-handers (Obama, McCain). Casasanto and Jasmin found that right-handed candidates made a greater proportion of right-hand gestures when expressing positive ideas and left-hand gestures when expressing negative thoughts. But the opposite was found for the left-handers, who favored their left hand more for the positive and their right hand for the negative. Obama's 'right-hand man' may be on his left. (PLoS ONE July 28, 2010)

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Nanomaterials are poised for widespread use in the construction industry, where they can offer significant advantages for a variety of applications ranging from making more durable concrete to self-cleaning windows. But widespread use in building materials comes with potential environmental and health risks when those materials are thrown away. Those are the conclusions of a new study published by Rice University engineering researchers this month in ACS Nano.

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A specific area in our brains is responsible for processing information about human and animal faces, both how we recognize them and how we interpret facial expressions. Now, Tel Aviv University research is exploring what makes this highly specialized part of the brain unique, a first step to finding practical applications for that information.

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Stronger suction is required to smoke "electronic cigarettes" – marketed as tobacco-free nicotine delivery systems – than conventional brands, with possible adverse effects on human health, researchers at the University of California, Riverside report.

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Ever notice some people seem to eat anything they want and never gain a pound, while others seem to gain weight just by looking at fattening foods? You may be seeing things correctly after all. According to research published in the July 2010 issue of Genetics (http://www.genetics.org), this may have a biological cause. Using fruit flies, researchers have found that genes interacting with diet, rather than diet alone, are the main cause of variation in metabolic traits, such as body weight. This helps explain why some diets work better for some people than others, and suggests that future diets should be tailored to an individual's genes rather than to physical appearance.

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Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego and GlySens Incorporated have developed an implantable glucose sensor and wireless telemetry system that continuously monitors tissue glucose and transmits the information to an external receiver. The paper, published in the July 28, 2010 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, describes the use of this glucose-sensing device as an implant in animals for over one year. After human clinical trials and FDA approval, the device may be useful to people with diabetes as an alternative to finger sticking and short-term, needle-like glucose sensors that have to be replaced every three to seven days.