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Building a new brain? It's easy; What MPs and slime mould have in common; Harry Potter and the Seismic ShocksThe science of slime-ball behaviourThe distance between an amoeba and an MP is even smaller than you thought. Writing in Current Biology, Dr Chris Thompson and Dr Jason Wolf of the University of Manchester argue that every organism is genetically programmed to cheat the system and has to be policed to stop putting its needs ahead of society. Their study of slime mould has shown that even these microscopic organisms respond to competition and are not above cheating in a bid to gain the upper hand. 'Using slime mould allows us to examine social behaviour in its most basic form,' says Thompson. 'Even though they are single cell organisms that just divide, we have shown they do have a complex social life that involves cheating and coercion.'Making a brain? It's not as hard as you might thinkA model that replicates the functions of the human brain is feasible in 10 years, according

In a first, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have developed a completely tree-powered electrical circuit. The nano-scale device-approximately 130 nanometers [a nanometer is one billionth of a meter] in size-consumes just 10 billionths of a watt (10 nanowatts). Unlike the legendary science fair experiment in which a potato-based electric circuit is created using two electrodes (each electrode being a different metal, which react with the starch, causing a potential difference and thus a current), the UW device utilizes electrodes comprised of the same metal, and is able to generate (output) 1.1 volts. “As far as we know, this is the first peer-reviewed paper of someone powering something entirely by sticking electrodes into a tree,” according to paper co-author Babak Parviz, associate professor of electrical engineering at the UW. of this story »

Wind energy could provide all of China's electricity demand projected for the year 2030, about twice China's current consumption, says a new study published in the journal Science.

At a Harvard event on Wednesday, biology giants E. O. Wilson and James Watson described their past rivalry and the role of competition in science

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 11, 2009 - UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, could improve the safety and reliability of spacecraft that operate in the upper atmosphere.

Back in May, the White House announced that it was convening a 10-member independent panel to take a long, hard look at NASA's plans for human spaceflight. The committee delivered a summary of its report (pdf) to the president's Office of Science and Technology Policy this week, solidifying many of the sober warnings that the panel had aired in a series of public meetings earlier this summer. [More]

CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg interviewed Jeff Reifman--the man who tracked down Wired Magazine writer Evan Ratliff

The Life Science Instruments and Technological Innovation Centre, Chinese Academy of Sciences has been established in the Institute of Biophysics in Beijing on September 10th.

A new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support 30 graduate students working in the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) on the development of materials to advance sustainable living.

[NEWS] An animal study at Purdue University has shown that adding ascorbic acid and sugar to green tea can help the body absorb helpful compounds and also demonstrates the effectiveness of a model that could reduce the number of animals needed for these types of studies. Mario Ferruzzi, associate professor of food science and nutrition, adapted a digestion model with human intestinal cells to show tha…