[BBC News]
Scientists propose vertical farming in Manhattan.

[Telegraph.co.uk]
Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacterium into another.

[Yahoo! News]
In a breakthrough that could potentially lead to a cure for HIV infection, scientists have discovered a way to remove the virus from infected cells, by engineering an enzyme which attacks the DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell.

[Thrilling Wonder]
Superb pictures from NASA's recent shuttle mission to the ISS.

[NewScientist]
Global Resource Corporation claims to be able to use microwaves to turn plastics back into oil.

[ScienceDaily]
Researchers have shown that bone marrow stem cells injected into a damaged inner ear can speed hearing recovery after partial hearing loss.

[ScienceDaily]
Scientists at Université du Québec à Montréal have reconstructed the genetic history of a population of mouflons (wild sheep) descended from a single pair, the researchers demonstrated that the animals' genetic diversity increased over time, contrary to what the usual models predict. These results contradict the belief that a population descended from a small number of individuals will exhibit numerous deficiencies and reduced genetic diversity.

[ScienceDaily]
The number of consumer products using nanotechnology has more than doubled, from 212 to 475, in the 14 months since the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies launched the world’s first online inventory of manufacturer-identified nanotech goods in March 2006.

[CNN]
The National Audubon Society warns that twenty common birds in the United States have lost more than half their populations in the past 40 years.

[Science Blog]
An international research consortium has published a set of papers that promise to reshape our understanding of how the human genome functions. The findings challenge the traditional view of our genetic blueprint as a tidy collection of independent genes, pointing instead to a complex network in which genes, along with regulatory elements and other types of DNA sequences that do not code for proteins, interact in overlapping ways not yet fully understood.

[Space.com]
Alien worlds, once hidden from knowledge, are now being discovered in droves, stunning astronomers with their unique features and sheer numbers. The discoveries are so common that more and more don't even get reported outside scientific circles.

[Scientific American]
Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel have demonstrated that neurons cultured outside the brain can be imprinted with multiple rudimentary memories that persist for days without interfering with or wiping out others. The results, they claim, set the stage for the creation of a neuromemory chip that could be paired with computer hardware.

[Edge]
An opinion is an opinion, but it's not a very good one when based on "facts" that just aren't so.

[The New York Times]
In a surprising advance that could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease. The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state. Embryonic cells can be induced in the laboratory to develop into many of the body’s major tissues.

[Sentient Developments]
Is the Drake Equation (which attempts to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations out there) obsolete?

[NewScientist.com]
The natural radiation dose of tobacco has been found to be many times higher than that of leaves at Chernobyl, leading many scientists to believe that cancer deaths among smokers may be due to the radioactive content of tobacco leaves and not to nicotine and tar.