If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam. The pulsed laser beam lasts just 30 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second. Such intense beams could help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer, among other applications.

  Discoveries about how muscles tell arteries that they need more blood to perform could lead to a new treatment for poor circulation in aging patients, which causes amputation in the worst cases and quadruples the risk of heart attack or stroke. A related mechanism controls blood flow to chronic wounds, and the same discoveries could lead to a pro-growth ointment that speeds healing.

  Researchers have discovered a peptide in scorpion venom that may hold the key to understanding and controlling cystic fibrosis and other secretory diseases. The novel peptide, called GaTx1, can control the movement of ions and water out of cells by interacting with a crucial chloride channel that is commonly mutated in patients with cystic fibrosis. Chloride channels are crucial for secretion in many epithelial tissues, but little has been known about their structures and mechanisms. Researchers do know that chloride channels open to allow millions of chloride ions to travel through them and out of epithelial cells. This movement creates an osmotic gradient that allows water to flow.

  Researchers now have a clearer understanding of how a key protein controls gene activity and how mutations in the protein may cause disease. The work could provide new avenues to design drugs aimed at cancer, diabetes, HIV, and heart disease.

  The Earth's orbital behaviors are responsible for more than just presenting us with a leap year every four years. According to one professor of earth and planetary sciences, parameters such as planetary gravitational attractions, the Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun and the degree of tilt of our planet's axis with respect to its path around the sun, have implications for climate change and the advent of ice ages.

  Constructal theory of flows governs social phenomena like rankings. A Duke University researcher says that his physics theory, which has been applied to everything from global climate to traffic patterns, can also explainanother trend: why university rankings tend not to change very much from year to year. Like branching river channels across the earth's surface, universities are part of a relatively rigid network that is predictable based on "constructal theory," which describes the shapes of flows in nature, argues one professor of mechanical engineering.

  Publicly funded science in America is accountable to the people and their government representatives. However, this arrangement raises questions regarding the effect such oversight has on science. It is a problem of particular relevance as the nation prepares for the end of the Bush administration, which has taken divisive stances on a number of issues, including stem cell research and global warming. Striking a balance is an essential question.

  The numbers of many large shark species have declined by more than half due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year. Now, the global status of large sharks has been assessed by the World Conservation Union.

  Artificial retinal implant takes the next step by expanding the clinical trial. The Argus II is the second generation of an electronic retinal implant designed for the treatment of blindness due to Retinitis Pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that affect the retina. The Argus II implant consists of an array of 60 electrodes that are attached to the retina. These electrodes conduct information acquired from an external camera to the retina to provide a rudimentary form of sight to implanted subjects.

  The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Panthera Foundation announced plans to establish a 5,000 mile-long "genetic corridor" from Bhutan to Burma that would allow tiger populations to roam freely across landscapes. Rabinowitz said corridors did not have to be pristine parkland but could in fact include agricultural areas, ranches, and other multi-use landscapes -- just as long as tigers could use them to travel between wilderness areas.

  New findings shed light on how lupus develops, which could help in targeting a treatment for the autoimmune disease that affects 1.5 to 2 million Americans. The findings could lead to therapy to fight autoimmune disease.

  Mars is about to come into 3D focus as never before, thanks to the data from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera. A new high-resolution Digital Terrain Model data set that has just been released onto the Internet, will allow researchers to obtain new information about the Red Planet in 3D.

  Interlocks, breath-testing devices that prevent a vehicle's ignition from starting if the driver is above a preset blood alcohol limit, can dramatically reduce driving-while-impaired offenses among first-time offenders, a new study shows.

  Astronomers have discovered that terrestrial planets might form around many, if not most, of the nearby sun-like stars in the disk of our galaxy. At least one in five nearby solar-mass stars may form terrestrial worlds. These new results suggest that worlds with potential for life might be more common than thought.