Drinks lower glucose to protect heart

Moderate consumption of beer, wine, or gin lowers blood glucose, perhaps helping to stave off type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The illicit drug methamphetamine alters immune proteins unleashed in the body, possibly explaining why some longtime methamphetamine abusers suffer heart problems.

A computer in every cell
Artificial genes inserted into cells make RNA molecules that can perform logical computations.

Nerves are key to longevity effect
The life-extending effect that some animals get from calorie-restricted diets may depend on signals from the brain.

A sweet way to replace petroleum?
Thanks to a new chemical process, many products now manufactured from petroleum could one day be made from sugar molecules.

Music to alien ears
Saturn's moon Titan may be the best rock concert venue in the solar system, according to computer simulations of sound propagation on other worlds.

Nanospheres leave cancer no place to hide

Gold-coated glass "nanoshells" can reveal the location of tumours and then destroy them minutes later in a burst of heat, according to new research. When injected into the bloodstream, the particles accumulate at the site of a tumour. The tumour sites can then be identified using low-power infrared light, and destroyed by applying a high-power infrared laser

If the universe has extra-spatial dimensions in parallel to the 3D we are used to, they might be seen in areas of extreme gravity around dense stars

A device that can hold hundreds of atoms in a 3D array, and image each one individually, has been developed by scientists in the US. The machine is an important stepping stone towards the development of a quantum computer

Beyond Ethanol: Synthetic fuel offers promising alternative
A faster, simpler manufacturing technique could make a synthetic biofuel into an even stronger competitor to ethanol.

Winged dragon
A quarry on the Virginia-North Carolina border has yielded fossils of an unusual gliding reptile that lived in the region about 220 million years ago.

Diabetes drug might hike heart risk
People who take rosiglitazone, a popular diabetes drug marketed as Avandia, may face an increased risk of heart attack.