Interfering with inflammation

US scientists have developed a method to selectively shut off genes linked to inflammation all around the body. Writing in this week's Nature, University of Massachusetts researcher Michael Czech and his colleagues describe how they have produced gene-silencing particles which are orally active and ...

Better way to fight flu

Scientists have developed a pain-free injection system to immunise people against influenza. Writing in the current edition of PNAS, Emory University researcher Richard Compans and his colleagues describe how a system of microneedles, each measuring less than a tenth of the diameter of a traditional...

Boogying birds

News came out this week that it isn’t just people who enjoy a moving and dancing to favourite but birds, it turns out, also like to boogie. Aniruddh Patel from the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, first saw Snowball the sulphur crested cockatoo on a video clip on the website youtube bobbing hi...

Lithium in tap water cuts suicide rates

Scientists in Japan have found a strong link between higher levels of the metal lithium in tap water and a reduced incidence of suicide. Hirochika Ohgami and Takeshi Terao from Oita University led a team who measured the levels of lithium in the tap water of 18 municipalities of a region of Japan c...

Musical Viruses

Stephan Zielinski has made his own viral music from swine flu using a simple sequence of amino acids found in swine flu proteins...

The Genetics of Swine Flu

People are concerned about swine influenza from Mexico but surely more answers than any can be obtained by sequencing the virus and understanding what its genetic story is...

This Week in Science History - The Integrated Circuit

This week in science history saw, in 1952, the inventor Geoffrey Dummer present his idea of the integrated circuit, now an essential component of all modern computers. Sarah Castor-Perry explains more...