Science

Just one night without sleep can increase the amount of the chemical dopamine in the human brain, according to new imaging research in the August 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Because drugs that increase dopamine, like amphetamines, promote wakefulness, the findings offer a potential mechanism explaining how the brain helps people stay awake despite the urge to sleep.

However, the study also shows that the increase in dopamine cannot compensate for the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation.

According to new research from the Monell Center, odors from skin can be used to identify basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. The findings, presented at the 236th meeting of the American Chemical Society, may open doors to development of new methods to detect basal cell carcinoma and other forms of skin cancer.

A 'cloaking' device that stops computer hackers maliciously hijacking pacemakers' radio signals could save lives, say scientists. Doctors are increasingly using wireless pacemakers to monitor the regulation of patients' heartbeats, and can even adjust the settings remotely.

But earlier this year a team of US scientists using a radio signal were able to simulate interference with the devices and claimed that, in theory, hijackers could shut them down or deliver potentially lethal electric shocks to millions of heart patients.

When a group of University of Oklahoma researchers began studying the environmental fate of spilt petroleum, a problem that has plagued the energy industry for decades, they did not expect to eventually isolate a community of microorganisms capable of converting hydrocarbons into natural gas.

Forget performance-enhancing drugs for soldiers, the next frontier is performance-degrading drugs for our enemies. Rick Weiss at the Science Progress blog has just written a nice post about a just-released 150-page report from the National Research Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency that argues that the military needs to do a better job keeping up with neuroscience: in part so it can learn how to make our enemies stupider.

THE next time you hear someone blaming "beer goggles" for their behaviour, you may have to believe them. People really do appear more attractive when our perceptions are changed by drinking alcohol.

Fossil fuels that keep our planet running -- oil, natural gas and coal -- were created from the decomposition of plants, plankton and other organic material over millions of years.

Today, scientists all over the globe are working to create fuels with the same properties but without that pesky 100 million-year wait. And "renewable petroleum" is now a reality, on a small scale, in some laboratories.

Harvard scientists say they have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish.

This early step, using a new technique, could help speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most confounding ailments, the scientists said. The new work was reported online Thursday in the journal Cell, and the researchers said they plan to make the cell lines readily available to other scientists.

Scientists working with NASA's Phoenix Lander are reasonably sure they have detected a toxic chemical in the soil near the north pole of Mars. But they say hearty strains of microbes might be able to live there anyway -- and even thrive on it.

"This is an important piece of the puzzle as we attempt to determine whether habitable conditions exist for microbes on Mars," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona. "In itself, it is neither good nor bad for life."

Nasa has confirmed that it has definitely found water on Mars.

The organisation was fairly certain that the ice samples it was seeing were made of water but the Phoenix probe has now managed to heat up a sample and the substance is definitely water.