Study finds differences between blood pressure medicines and newly-diagnosed diabetes

   Researchers at Rush University Medical Center analyzed the data from 22 randomized clinical trials, and have found significant differences between antihypertensive drugs. ACE-inhibitors and the newer angiotensin receptor blockers, or ARBs prevent people from getting diabetes, and the older diuretics or beta-blockers, increase the chance that a person becomes diabetic, compared to either placebo (inactive sugar-pills) or calcium channel blockers according to a study published in the January 20, 2007 issue of the Lancet.
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Ultra-dense optical storage -- On one photon

   Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image's worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact. While the initial test image consists of only a few hundred pixels, a tremendous amount of information can be stored with the new technique.
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Yale’s Micalizio receives Eli Lilly award for Organic Chemistry

   Yale Assistant Professor Glenn Micalizio has been named an Eli Lilly Grantee for Organic Chemistry, an award that comes with a two-year unrestricted grant of $100,000 that will be used to continue his research on ways to simplify the synthesis of complex biologically active organic molecules making collections of complex molecules easier to synthesize.
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Researchers create new class of compounds

   Researchers have synthesized new aluminum-hydrogen compounds with a unique chemistry that could lead to the development of more powerful solid rocket fuel and may also, in time, be useful for hydrogen-powered vehicles or other energy applications.
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Snow invades the Midwest (weather.com)

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Conservationists rally to support sharks (AP)

   

AP - The Kauai surfer was lucky: the eight-foot long shark that took a half moon-shaped chomp out of his board didn't go for a second bite.

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10th trapped dolphin dies in New York (AP)

   

AP - The number of dolphins who have died since being trapped in a shallow creek off eastern Long Island has risen to 10, a rescue leader said Saturday.

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Payment for stem cell eggs debated (AP)

   

AP - Say you're a woman who wants to have fertility treatment but can't afford the $5,000 to $6,000 cost.

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Winter weather headaches (weather.com)

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More bark than bite (weather.com)

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Sometimes, Consumer Reports errs, too (AP)

   AP - Consumer Reports once mismeasured the ingredients in dog food. Just last year, it screwed up the depreciation rates of hybrid cars.
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Wintry weather rages on (weather.com)

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The great cometary show

   Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, is no more visible for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. It does put an impressive show in the south, however, and observers in Chile, in particular at the Paranal Observatory, were able to capture amazing images, including a display reminiscent of an aurora!
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Fire danger fuels trees-for-fuel plans (AP)

   

AP - After nearly 90 years of sawing pine and Douglas fir logs into lumber, Rough & Ready Lumber Co. is branching into the energy business, building a $5 million plant to burn logging debris and to produce electricity that it can sell at a "green tag" premium to the regional power grid.

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UCLA's J. Fraser Stoddart wins the 2007 King Faisal Prize for Science

   UCLA professor Fraser Stoddart, director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), who holds UCLA's Fred Kavli Chair in Nanosystems Sciences, has been awarded the King Faisal International Prize for Science.
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Improved nanodots could be key to future data storage

   The massive global challenge of storing digital data -- storage needs reportedly double every year -- may be met with a tiny yet powerful solution: magnetic particles just a few billionths of a meter across. This idea is looking better than ever now that NIST researchers have made nanodot arrays that respond to magnetic fields with record levels of uniformity.
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Researchers observe superradiance in a free electron laser

   A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has generated extremely short light pulses using a new technique that could be used in the next generation of light sources. Published on Jan. 19, 2007, in Physical Review Letters, the research team's findings describe using a laser to control the pulse duration of light from a free electron laser as well as the first experimental observation of a phenomenon called superradiance.
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Algae toxin identification unravels fish-kill mystery

   A team of researchers from the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, S.C., has uncovered a subtle chemical pathway by which a normally inoffensive algae can suddenly start producing a lethal toxin. The discovery could resolve a long-standing mystery surrounding occasional mass fish kills on the East Coast.
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MIT: Nanocomposities yield strong, stretchy fibers

   Creating artificial substances that are both stretchy and strong has long been an elusive engineering goal. Inspired by spider silk, a naturally occurring strong and stretchy substance, MIT researchers have now devised a way to produce a material that begins to mimic this combination of desirable properties.
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UK team makes polar trek history

   Three British men become the first people to reach the centre of Antarctica without any mechanical assistance.
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New miniaturized device for lab-on-a-chip separations

   Researchers at NIST have developed an elegantly simple, miniaturized technique for rapidly separating minute samples of proteins, amino acids and other chemical mixtures. A low-cost prototype device can run up to eight separations simultaneously in a space about the size of a quarter.
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New quartz references for workplace safety

   Chemists at NIST have developed a new set of reference materials that could contribute to significant improvements in workplace safety through more accurate measurement of the amount of quartz dust in the air.
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Experts call sharks misunderstood fish (AP)

   

AP - The Kauai surfer was lucky: the eight-foot long shark that took a half-moon sized chomp out of his board didn't go for a second bite.

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Moderate earthquake rattles Indonesia (AP)

   AP - A moderate earthquake rocked parts of eastern Indonesia on Saturday but there were no reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued, officials said.
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