short science articles

Scientists have developed a gel that helps brains recover from traumatic injuries. It has the potential to treat head injuries suffered in combat, car accidents, falls, or gunshot wounds. Developed by Dr. Ning Zhang at Clemson University in South Carolina, the gel is injected in liquid form at the site of injury and stimulates the growth of stem cells there.

All pet owners will happily explain to you their dog or cat's character traits -- probably in far more detail than you ever wanted to know. But the idea of animal personality is not one that's been formally studied all that much.

A new study has classed a species of bird into groups of more and less aggressive males. Researchers gauged the response of male collared flycatchers to female birds, to a strange object, and to other males. They found that each type of individual displayed consistent behavior in each of these situations.

So, despite some media hysteria last week, it looks like the swine flu won't be the death of us all. However, that does not mean the virus has stopped spreading, or that it won't reach pandemic levels and possibly cause significant economic damage.

eBay may turn household junk into online treasure, but archaeologists held their breaths in horrified anticipation when the site first launched over a decade ago thinking that the illegal artifacts market would surely explode in a frenzy of looting.

Now the same archaeologists conclude that the online auction site has had a very different impact on their field. Looting ancient sites turns out to be less profitable than just churning out the fakes and hawking them on eBay.

Last March, a French surgical team proved that face transplants weren't just for Nic Cage and John Travolta. Then, in December, an American team successfully performed the first face transplant on this side of the Atlantic. And yesterday, we got our first look at the results.

What happened to you, Holland? You used to be cool. As every popped-collar, half-witted frat boy and Bonnaroo-attending, blond dreadlock-wearing neo-hippie moron repeats ad nauseum, you were the country kindest to the kind bud.

Well, apparently Dutch robots aren't quite so accepting of a little puff now and then.

It seems as though pharmaceutical giant Merck (best known for the deadly painkiller Vioxx), has teamed up with science publishing titan Elsevier (who, not long ago, got caught producing a rather questionable math journal) to put out a fake peer-reviewed medical journal.