[Angry Astronomer]
Some common misconceptions about the Big Bang.

[Scientific American]
New research on producing vaccines with microorganisms killed with gamma radiation seems to show that such irradiated vaccines can trigger more powerful immunity than can be achieved by current vaccine-producing techniques.

[PhysOrg.com]
Electronic devices are always shrinking in size but it's hard to imagine anything beating what researchers at the University of New South Wales have created: a tiny wire that doesn't even use electrons to carry a current. Known as a hole quantum wire, it exploits gaps—or holes—between electrons. The relationship between electrons and holes is like that between electrons and anti-electrons, or matter and anti-matter.

[Guardian Unlimited]
Whether you know it or not, you'll probably be eating soya today. It's in 60% of all processed food, from cheese to ice cream, baby formula to biscuits. But should it carry a health warning? After finding out about the plant oestrogens in soya, Fitzpatrick says, "My next thought was: what about children who are fed soya milk?" He calculated that babies fed exclusively on soya formula could receive the oestrogenic equivalent, based on body weight, of five birth control pills a day.

[The University of Sydney]
Jenolan Caves—a series of spectacular limestone caves in central New South Wales—have been shown to date back 340 million years. The Blue Mountains began to form 100 million years ago; dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, andTasmania was joined to the mainland as recently as 10,000 years ago. Even in geological terms, 340 million years is a very long time.

[Scientific American]
Even the novice engages in effortful study at first, which is why beginners so often improve rapidly in playing golf, say, or in driving a car. But having reached an acceptable performance—for instance, keeping up with one's golf buddies or passing a driver's exam—most people relax. Their performance then becomes automatic and therefore impervious to further improvement. In contrast, experts-in-training keep the lid of their mind's box open all the time, so that they can inspect, criticize and augment its contents and thereby approach the standard set by leaders in their fields.

[LA Daily News]
Researchers believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code. The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.

[PhysOrg.com]
The molecular machinery that starts the process by which a biological cell divides into two identical daughter cells apparently worked so well early on that evolution has conserved it across the eons in all forms of life on Earth. Researchers have shown that the core machinery for initiating DNA replication is the same for all three domains of life—Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya.

[The Christian Science Monitor]
Bigelow Aerospace tests Genesis 1, a diminutive prototype for what could be a new generation of inflatable, commercial space stations, orbital hotels, or even living quarters and labs for the moon or Mars.

[MSNBC]
Recent research has found evidence that the value of certain fundamental parameters, such as the speed of light or the invisible glue that holds nuclei together, may have been different in the past. The observed differences are small but the implications are huge: the laws of physics would have to be rewritten, not to mention we might need to make room for six more spatial dimensions than the three that we are used to.

[BBC News]
The likely color(s) of mammoth coats has been determined by DNA extracted from a 43,000-year-old bone from Siberia using the latest genetic techniques.

[Gemini]
Unique Sea Orbiter designed by French architect Jacques Rougerie.

[Nature]
Nature selects 50 top science blogs.

[ScienceDaily]
Bone marrow stem cells repair hearts damaged by heart attack, congestive heart failure.

[New York Times]
Déjà vécu: temporal lobe mishaps.

[Yahoo! News]
Everybody on Earth descends from somebody who was around as recently as the reign of Tutankhamen, maybe even during the Golden Age of ancient Greece. There's even a chance that our last shared ancestor lived at the time of Christ. If you go back a little farther—about 5,000 to 7,000 years ago—everybody living today has exactly the same set of ancestors. When you walk through an exhibit of Ancient Egyptian art from the time of the pyramids, everything there was very likely created by one of your ancestors—every statue, every hieroglyph, every gold necklace. If there is a mummy lying in the center of the room, that person was almost certainly your ancestor, too.