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Now Johns Hopkins scientists, working with the simplest of organisms, have discovered the molecular sensor that lets cells not only 'feel' changes to their neat shapes, but also to remodel themselves back into ready-to-split symmetry.

This week the peer review system has been in the newspapers, after a survey of scientists suggested it had some problems. That is barely news. Peer review - where articles submitted to an academic journal are reviewed by other scientists from the same field for an opinion on their quality - has always been recognised as problematic. It is time-consuming, it could be open to corruption, and it cannot prevent fraud, plagiarism, or duplicate publication, although in a more obvious case it might. The problem with peer review is, it's hard to find anything better.Here is one example of a failing alternative. This month, after a concerted campaign by academics aggregating around websites such as Aidstruth.org, academic publishers Elsevier have withdrawn two papers from a journal called Medical Hypotheses. This journal is a rarity: it does not have peer review, and instead, submissions are approved for publication by its one editor.Articles from Medical Hypotheses have appeared in this column

Today's stories on newscientist.com, at a glance - including airborne lasers, why great scientists need great rivals, and some levitating mice

Scientists have developed a new technique to monitor movements beneath the Earth's surface, helping them better understand how earthquakes behave.

New York, NY : A new study published in the September 11, 2009 issue of Science by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine reveals a conceptually novel mechanism that plays an important role in making human pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus anthracis resistant to numerous antibiotics.

Our top articles ranked by reader popularity.California encourages buildings that are sure to burnReview: Crow Planet by Lyanda Lynn HauptUniversal translator for web browsersExomoons and blazing wildfires: the week in spaceToday on New Scientist: 4 September 2009Circling turbines spell doom for vulturesWorld's climate could cool first, warm laterPlasmobot: the slime mould robotExtreme steel 'Velcro' takes a 35-tonne loadEyes see trouble coming before brain notices

[NEWS] Why are some pediatric cancers able to spontaneously regress? Prof. Michael Fainzilber and his team of the Weizmann Institute’s Biological Chemistry Department seem to have unexpectedly found part of the answer.  Further research towards a better understanding of the mechanism of action might hopefully lead, in the future, to the development of drugs that will be able to induce regression of certain tumors. TrkA is a particular cell receptor well known for its “pro-life advocacie…

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have managed to levitate young mice in research carried out for NASA. Levitated mice may help research on bone density loss during long exposures to low gravity, such as in space travel and missions to other planets.

The extremely rare Fiji petrel is spotted at sea in its natural habitat, for the first time, by scientists.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the series Star Trek, Klingons and Romulans have spaceships outfitted with cloaking devices that hide their presence from sight, as well as from the sensors of their rivals' spaceships. Unlike current invisibility cloaks, which are mostly effective only over a narrow range, these fictional devices provide a broadband type of invisibility that so far has eluded modern scientists.