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Image courtesy of iStockphoto/fotokon Although cocaine makes people feel more alert and on top of things in the moment, it can leave users vulnerable to a much slower brain in the long run.

The innermost secrets of champagne bubbles are about to be unveiled in the Springer journal European Physical Journal ST. This fascinating work is the brainchild of G

To monitor the biodiversity of a freshwater habitat, you could camp out by the water and count the rare wildlife.

To monitor the biodiversity of a freshwater habitat, you could camp out by the water and count the rare wildlife. Or you could just scoop up a cup of water. A new Dutch study has found that the DNA traces in a small sample of a body of water can reveal the species that live in it.

1 How Did Life Begin? The moment when the first living beings arose from inanimate matter almost four billion years ago is still shrouded in mystery. How did relatively simple molecules in the primordial broth give rise to more and more complex compounds

It covers over two thirds of our planet, is essential for life on Earth and its chemical formula is one of the few most people can name, but we still have much to learn about the structure of H2O. Now, scientists working in Grenoble have developed a new technique using oxygen isotopes to study in detail the structure of disordered oxide materials such as water in biological processes or glasses in lasers and telecommunication devices

Knots can now be tied systematically in the microscopic world. A team of scientists led by Uros Tkalec from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana (Slovenia), who has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Gottingen (Germany) since September 2010, has now found a way to create every imaginable knot inside a liquid crystal.

By Erica Check Hayden of Nature magazine Scientists have identified the molecular players central to an incurable brain injury common in premature babies, and have shown how such injuries might one day be treated, sparing people from lifelong conditions such as cerebral palsy. In babies born before their lungs are fully developed, lack of oxygen can disrupt nerve cells' ability to make a protective coating, called myelin, that makes up the brain's 'white matter'. [More]

(PhysOrg.com) -- Space scientists working to solve one cosmic mystery at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., now have the capability to better understand unidentified matter in deep space. Using a new facility so sensitive that it can recognize the molecular structure of particles in space, researchers now are able to track unidentified matter seen for the last century absorbing certain wavelengths of light from distant stars.

By Marian Turner of Nature magazine A long-term study of children from Romanian orphanages suggests that the effects of childhood stress could be visible in their DNA as they grow up.

The technique relies on "synchrotron" light, emitted from a particle accelerator, and could have uses ranging from biofuel production to art conservation. A new imaging technique provide high-resolution images of the molecular composition of tissues

Last year, Stratasys and Kor Ecologic introduced the first 3-D printed car .

Scientists now have a better understanding of why spider silk fibers are so incredibly strong. Recent research, published by Cell Press on February 15th in Biophysical Journal, describes the architecture of silk fibers from the atomic level up and reveals new information about the molecular structure that underlies the amazing mechanical characteristics of this fascinating natural material.