Infection control experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have found that a combination of robot-like devices that disperse hydrogen peroxide vapor into the air and then detoxify the disinfecting chemical are highly effective at killing and preventing the spread of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria.


Of special note, researchers say, was that enhanced cleaning with the vapor reduced by 80 percent a patient's chances of becoming colonized by a particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat bacterium, vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). ...

Sometimes, the Sun itself seems to dance. On just this past New Years Eve, for example, NASAs Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressive prominence erupting from the Suns surface. The dramatic explosion was captured in ultraviolet light in the above time lapse video covering four hours. Of particular interest is the tangled magnetic field that directs a type of solar ballet for the hot plasma as it falls back to the Sun. The scale of the disintegrating prominence is huge -- the entire Earth would easily fit under the flowing curtain of hot gas. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection expelling hot gas into the Solar System. The energy mechanism that creates a ...

The very first bionic hand that allows the amputee to actually feel what the hand is touching will be transplanted later this year.

According to doctors involved in the surgery the hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto two of the arm’s main nerves. This will allow the patient to control the hand directly with his thoughts, and receive sensory signals to his brain from the bionic hand.

This will be a major breakthrough in prosthetics and could open the door to a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception. ...

Sad news, stoners. Scientists in Israel have cross-bred a new type of medical marijuana that essentially removes the dopey, high-inducing properties from it — basically, it's pot that won't get you stoned. Researchers with Tikun Olam have meticulously cross-bred their medical pot to eliminate most of the psychoactive THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) properties from it; instead, the cannabis has a high concentration of cannabidiol (CBD), a potent anti-inflammatory. The result is a substance that's great for woozy-free pain relief, terrible for stoners trying to get high. ...

Down syndrome  is caused by a triple copy of chromosome 21, which leads to a number of cognitive and physical delays. Now researchers from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have found a protein that restores the some of the cognitive and behavioral disorders found in the disease.

Mice who were deficient in the SNX27 protein exhibited similar characteristics to mice with Down syndrome—namely, they had fewer glutamate receptors, which are important for learning and memory, the team reported in Nature Medicine on Sunday (March 24). The researchers also showed that in mice with Down syndrome, the protein is blocked by a molecule encoded on chromosome 21, and produced in excess in Down syndrome mice as a re ...

It turns out that ants are capable of making career moves.

Computer tracking of ants shows that colonies have three main occupations: nursing the queen, cleaning, and foraging for food. Younger ants typically stay near the queen, but as they get older, they make the transition to foraging. This transition with regards to age was an exciting discovery, giving more insight into ant behavior.
 
Source: http://www.nature.com/news/tracking-whole-colonies-shows-ants-make-career-moves-1.12833 ...

A Judean date palm plant was planted in 2005 using seeds that were hidden away for 2000 years. While other species of date palms thrive around the world, this particular species was thought to be extinct for 1800 years.

Date palms are either male or female, and this one, nicknamed Methuselah, is a male, so it will not produce fruit. However, the plant is alive and well, and is the oldest known seed to successfully germinate.