[LiveScience]
Using a real-life virus as a model, researchers have built a virtual version using more than a million digital atoms. Scientists have previously simulated small pieces of living cells, but this is the first digital simulation of an entire life form.

[The Scripps Research Institute]
Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have successfully converted an RNA enzyme (ribozyme) into a DNA enzyme (deoxyribozyme) through a process of accelerated in vitro evolution. The molecular conversion or transfer of both genetic information and catalytic function between these two different genetic systems, which are both based on nucleic acid-like molecules, is exactly what many scientists believe occurred during the very earliest period of earth's existence.

[Seed Magazine]
Physics informs mathematics as to why 42 just might be an answer to life, the universe, and proving the Riemann Hypothesis.

[Nature]
This Nature web focus combines commentaries from leading scientists and news features analysis from journalists assessing how computing science concepts and techniques may transform mainstream science by 2020.

[European Space Agency]
Scientists funded by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity. It demonstrates that a superconductive gyroscope is capable of generating a powerful gravitomagnetic field, and is therefore the gravitational counterpart of the magnetic coil. Depending on further confirmation, this effect could form the basis for a new technological domain, which would have numerous applications in space and other high-tech sectors.

[SpaceX]
Preliminary SpaceX internal analysis of loss of Falcon 1 rocket on launch.

[Technology Review]
Ten emerging technologies.

[Science Blog]
By depleting insulin and its related proteins in the brain, researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School have replicated the progression of Alzheimer's disease—including plaque deposits, neurofibrillary tangles, impaired cognitive functioning, cell loss and overall brain deterioration—in an experimental animal model, raising the possibility that Alzheimer's is a neuroendocrine disorder, or a Type 3 diabetes.

[The Sydney Morning Herald]
People who smile a lot and say "have a nice day" are headed to an early grave while the grumpy stay fit.

[Edge]
Kevin Kelly speculates on the future of science.

[Yahoo! News]
Capsaicin, which makes peppers hot, can cause prostate cancer cells to kill themselves.

[SFGate.com]
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has arrived safely at Mars and is expected to gather more data on the Red Planet than all previous Martian missions combined.

[New York Times]
Study suggests human genome still evolving.

[The Times Online]
Steven Pinker on Richard Dawkins.

[New York Times]
NASA's new budget to have dire consequences: The bottom line: science at NASA is disappearing — fast.