[EurekAlert]
How much of the world do we really perceive, and how much do we imagine?

[Yahoo! News]
A 176-year-old giant Galapagos tortoise believed to have been studied by famed English naturalist Charles Darwin, has died in Australia after a short illness.

[New Scientist]
110-million-year-old spider web found preserved in amber...with extinct insect prey!

[Financial Times]
The Royal Society reverses position, will start their own open access journals to compete with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals.

[Biology News Net]
Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have taken preliminary steps toward using a patient's own cells instead of an artificial pacemaker, with a goal of creating a biological replacement for the atrioventricular (AV) node.

[New Scientist]
The first treatment derived from embryonic stem cells might soon undergo clinical trials. The cells would be used to help repair damaged spinal tissue.

[University of Arkansas]
Researchers have created assemblies of nanowires that show potential in applications such as armor, flame-retardant fabric, bacteria filters, oil cracking, controlled drug release, decomposition of pollutants and chemical warfare agents. This two-dimensional "paper" can be shaped into three-dimensional devices. It can be folded, bent and cut, or used as a filter, yet it is chemically inert, remains robust and can be heated up to 700 degrees Celsius. Humans have used paper made from natural fibers for thousands of years. With this technology, we are entering a new era.

[iWon News]
Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.

[Wired]
Politics without objective, honest measurement of results is a deadly short circuit. It means living a life of sterile claptrap, lacquering over failure after intellectual failure with thickening layers of partisan abuse. Society, having abandoned the scientific method, loses its empirical referent, and truth becomes relative. This is a serious affliction known as Lysenkoism.

[PhysOrg.com]
Wings, spines, saber-like teeth—nature and the fossil record abound with examples of structures so useful they've evolved independently in a variety of animals. New evidence suggests that examples of so-called adaptive, parallel evolution also can be found at the level of genes and proteins.

[Los Angeles Times]
Vitamin D now believed to do a great deal more than just strengthen bones.

[LiveScience]
Erotic images elicit faster and stronger electrical responses in a woman's brain than other images ranging from pleasant to disturbing. Previous research indicated men are more aroused by erotic images than women, so Anokhin and his colleagues expected women to respond with lower levels of brain activity compared to men. But that was not the case, said study leader Andrey Anokhin of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Women have responses as strong as those seen in men. The next question on Anokhin's mind: Whether or not the human prefrontal cortex contains special neurons tuned for sex.

[Forbes]
An experimental vaccine is showing promise against Alzheimer's disease, reducing brain deposits that are blamed for the disorder. The deposits have been cut by between 15.5% and 38.5% in mice, with no major side effects.

[Reason Online]
Ronald Bailey discusses the recent Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights (HETHR) conference and considers the right to human enhancement.

[Washington Post]
"Smart pill" use on the rise by those looking for cognitive enhancement.

[BBC News]
Over the objection of Christian fundamentalist extremists, the FDA has approved Gardasil, the first vaccine against cervical cancer, which kills at least 290,000 women worldwide a year.

[EurekAlert]
Bacteria like Salmonella have a complicated immune system that helps them recognize and isolate foreign DNA trying to invade their cell membrane.

[ABC News Online]
A team of scientists and surgeons at a Melbourne hospital has developed a method of growing new organs within a patient's body. Now currently we have been able to make breast tissue, fat, muscle, pancreas tissue that secretes insulin and we have also created thymus tissue, which may have an application in immunology.

[StateMaster]
Chart showing loss of natural teeth (adults aged 65+ who have had all their natural teeth extracted) by state.

[Biosingularity]
Researchers at the Johnnie B. Byrd, Sr. Alzheimer's Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, have developed a vaccine that reverses memory loss in mice with Alzheimer's disease.

[Reuters]
Bacteria are so important to key functions such as digestion and the immune system that humans may be truly symbiotic organisms. We are somehow like an amalgam, a mix of bacteria and human cells. There are some estimates that say 90 percent of the cells on our body are actually bacteria, says Steven Gill, a molecular biologist at the State University of New York in Buffalo. We're entirely dependent on this microbial population for our well-being.Humans have evolved for million of years with these bacteria. And they provide essential functions.

[dukemed news]
Many of the detrimental effects of physical inactivity can be reversed, and in some cases improved, by a similar period of moderate exercise.

[Tom's Hardware]
Tom's Hardware does an in-depth review of Windows Vista.