An artist's rendition of a planet (L) circling the M-dwarf star GJ 436.

An odd planet the size of Neptune, made mostly of hot, solid water, has been discovered orbiting a nearby star and offers evidence that other planets may be covered with oceans.
Called GJ 436b, the planet orbits quickly around a cool, red star some 30 light-years away, the team at the Geneva Observatory said.
“It’s not a very welcoming planet,“ Frederic Pont, an astronomer who helped make the discovery, said. The planet is hot because it is near its star and under high pressure because of its mass.
“The water is frozen by the pressure but it’s hot. It’s a bit strange--we are used to water changing conditions because of temperature, but in fact water can also be solidified by pressure,“ Pont said,Space.com reported.
The planet is also likely blanketed by hydrogen, the researchers said--conditions hardly conducive to life. But if there is water, there could be water on other planets in other solar systems and thus life as we know it.
“It shows there are many ocean planets,“ Pont said.
“All we could tell is that it was there and about how much mass was there,“ said astronomer Jason Wright of the University of California Berkeley, part of the original team.
Astronomers have found about 200 so-called extrasolar planets orbiting stars other than our sun. Many are detected by indirect measurements such as tiny variations in the wobble of a star.
And many appear to be gas giants like Jupiter. This one appears to be smaller, but not small enough to have a rocky center as the Earth does.
“From the size and the mass we get the density,“ Pont said. And the density of GJ 436b suggests it is made of water.
“The mass and radius that we measure for GJ 436b indicate that it is mainly composed of water ice. It is an ’ice giant’ planet like Uranus and Neptune rather than a small-mass gas giant or a very heavy ’super-Earth,’ the researchers said.
It is very close to its star, the M-dwarf star GJ 436.
“It’s a small star, 100 times less bright than the sun,“ Pont said. It is about half the sun’s mass.
“Smaller stars are cooler and redder,“ he added.
That is why the water can persist, albeit in a hot and solid state. The astronomers estimate its temperature at 520 K, which is 247 degrees Celsius.
The star is about 33 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km per second), or close to 6 trillion miles.

Chronic back pain is a condition that affects a significant part of the population, with patients falling into three major groups; those with herniated discs, spinal stenosis (a nerve affecting narrowing of the spinal cord), and complications from failed back surgery. Radiofrequency thermolesioning is a widespread treatment for chronic back pain, but because of its neurodestructive nature, it is often considered an unsuitable treatment, eurekalert said.
Building on earlier work, a new study led by Dr. David Abejan investigates the use of an alternative treatment known as pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) in treating chronic back pain. It finds that the treatment yields significant improvements for herniated disc patients and notable improvements for those with spinal stenosis. Since PRF does not involve drugs, it may be repeated multiple times. This study appears in the journal Pain Practice.
While the preexisting conditions that accompany chronic back pain, such as neurological lesions or neuropathic pain, make conventional radiofrequency a controversial treatment, Abejan notes “the use of PRF could reduce or potentially even eliminate these risks,“ providing safe, effective pain relief for patients with a variety of lower back pain conditions.

Images that show how fingerprints can be used to reveal whether you are a smoker, an avid coffee drinker or even a drug addict have been revealed by UK scientists.
They were produced using a novel forensic technique that could in future be used on fingerprints collected at a crime scene. If the prints in question are not on file, this would still give police a powerful way to shrink their pool of suspects, by identifying their lifestyle habits, NewScientist.com reported.
The technique was developed by a team of forensics experts at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, and King’s College in London, both in the UK.
It exploits the fact that the breakdown products--metabolites--of substances people consume are deposited in sweat found in pores in their fingerprint ridges. To detect these metabolites they use gold nanoparticles.
The researchers, led by David Russell at UEA, claimed in 2006 that fingerprints could be used in this way (see Fingerprints reveal lifestyle habits. Now they have shown that it works in practise, even shortly after someone has washed their hands.
The team designed a system capable of detecting cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine. This metabolite was chosen because simple contact with a cigarette or tobacco is not enough to produce it.
To detect cotinine, a fingerprint is simply dabbed with a solution containing gold nanoparticles with attached antibodies that bind to the metabolite.
Then a second antibody that binds to the cotinine antibodies and is marked with a fluorescent dye is applied. If the owner of the print is a smoker, shining light on it will reveal a florescent glow along its ridge patterns.
Besides extending the test to antibodies capable of detecting alcohol and illicit drugs, Russell thinks the technique could be used to detect performance-enhancing drug use in sport.

Cocoa extract was even more effective than fluoride in fighting cavities.

For a healthy smile, always brush between meals, floss regularly and eat plenty of chocolate?
According to WorldScientist.com, an extract of cocoa powder that occurs naturally in chocolate, tea, and other products might be an effective natural alternative to fluoride in toothpaste.
In fact, his research revealed that the cocoa extract was even more effective than fluoride in fighting cavities. The extract, a white crystalline powder whose chemical makeup is similar to caffeine, helps harden teeth enamel, making users less susceptible to tooth decay.
The extract could offer the first major innovation to toothpaste since manufacturers began adding fluoride to toothpaste in 1914.
The extract has been proved effective in the animal model, but it will probably be another two to four years before the product is approved for human use and available for sale, Sadeghpour says.
But he has already created a prototype of peppermint flavoured toothpaste with the cavity-fighting cocoa extract added, and his doctoral thesis research compared the extract side by side to fluoride on the enamel surface of human teeth.

Broccoli could be a major player in the prevention of prostate and colon cancer.

It turns out Mom was right--you should eat your broccoli. But what Mom may not have known is why broccoli is so healthy, and how it’s lesser known, younger offshoot may be a powerful anti-cancer agent.
Researchers at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University have found that sulforaphane--a compound found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, bok choy and brussels sprouts--has strong anti-cancer properties.
Even more promising results have been found in broccoli sprouts. The tiny, thread-like broccoli sprouts sold at stores next to alfalfa sprouts have more than 50 times the amount of sulforaphane than found in mature broccoli, Science Daily said.
Emily Ho, a researcher with the Linus Pauling Institute and an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences at OSU, will describe these dietary inhibitors for cancer prevention at the conference on “Diet and Optimum Health,“ organized by the Linus Pauling Institute.
Ho’s main area of research is on the dietary prevention of prostate cancer.
Past studies in Ho’s lab have focused on dietary elements in cancer prevention such as green tea and soy.
In her new study Ho and her colleagues looked at cruciferous vegetables. While many cruciferous vegetables have sulforaphane, broccoli and broccoli sprouts have the highest amount and thus could be a major player in the prevention of prostate and colon cancer.
Ho said drugs classified as histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are being looked at as potentially preventing cancer. She said their research shows that these same effects of inhibiting HDAC might be obtained by consumption of cruciferous vegetables.
“I would say if you’re at all worried about cancer or at high risk of cancer, especially of prostate or colon cancer, then increasing your dietary intake of broccoli and other vegetables could be a good idea,“ Ho said.
“It certainly can’t hurt. And drugs can have negative side effects and be difficult to administer.“
While Ho said the research is not at the point where she can make a specific recommendation on how much broccoli or bok choy to eat, she personally tries to have two servings of cruciferous vegetables a day.
In human subjects, just eating some broccoli sprouts on top of a bagel with cream cheese resulted in HDAC inhibition.
“The compound in broccoli may be one of the strongest anti-cancer fighters we have,“ Ho said.

Human embryonic stem cells can be transformed into the pancreatic cells that produce insulin, offering the potential to treat diabetes.
The finding might provide evidence of one of the most sought-after functions of embryonic stem cells--treating diabetes.
Researchers are now work on purifying and perfecting these cells and testing them in animals, Reuters reported.
The researchers said they produced islet-like clusters, which resemble the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin.
In lab dishes, these cells produced insulin, glucagon and somatostatin, three of the major hormones produced by islet cells.
The cells secreted insulin when they were treated with elevated glucose levels--something they are supposed to do in the body.
“These studies show that the islet-like clusters contain the major cellular components of islets and are sensitive to glucose, the key sugar to which they must respond to be therapeutically beneficial,“ Majumdar said.
Type-1 diabetes is caused when the body mistakenly destroys insulin-producing pancreatic cells. When the body does not produce insulin in response to glucose, glucose levels rise in the blood, damaging blood vessels and organs.
Researchers have hoped that stem cells, a type of master cell for the body, might be coaxed into becoming the desired pancreatic cells. Stem cells from human embryos are considered the most flexible, and companies such as Geron, as well as academic researchers, have been working with them.
“It is the work published today that demonstrates the potential of human embryonic stem cells to enable the ready availability of uniform, functional islet cells for therapeutic administration.“
The use of human embryonic stem cells is controversial because some people oppose the use of human embryos to get the cells.

A cheap glue that gets stronger at high temperatures might be useful around the house, but make it 100,000 times thinner than a human hair and you have nanoglue, a sticky substance that could help make extremely tiny computer chips, US researchers said.
Reveloped by researchers at institute in
New York nanoglue is made from ultrathin materials that are already commercially available, Reuters report this.
“It is really mind-boggling to think about a single layer of molecules improving the adhesion of something,“ said materials science researcher Ganapathiraman Ramanath.
“Our work shows the possibility of having organic-based nanolayers that are about a 1,000 times thinner than the thinnest organic-based glues,“ he said.
Similar toughness has been shown using layers as thin as one-millionth of a meter, but never before with a thickness of only one nanometer--which is just one billionth of a meter.
“This is a single layer of molecules that are organized like soldiers,“ Ramanath said in a telephone interview. The glue chain lines up in very orderly fashion all on its own.
“Nature does most of it for you,“ Ramanath said. “You just have to put the right thing on the top and the right thing on the bottom and it will work.“
The glue has a backbone of carbon molecules. On one end of the chain is silica and oxygen and on the other is sulfur. These different end molecules act as hooks that bind with other surfaces.
Ramanath topped off the chain with a thin layer of copper that acts as a protective coating that helps keep the molecules intact.
But when heated to 400 degrees Celsius or higher, the copper and silica formed a strong chemical bond and it became much stronge--increasing its stickiness by five to seven times.
“When you heat it, it becomes a better glue,“ he said. “That was something we hadn’t bargained for.“
He said the glue could be used as an inexpensive way to connect any two materials that do not bond well.
Ramanath and his team are seeking a patent for the material, which he thinks could be used in the development of chips used in any type of microelectronic device.

New non-invasive elastography technique that measures “muscle noise“ could provide a way of monitoring neuromuscular disease without exposing the patient to radiation.
The elastic properties of a muscle can reveal their condition. Muscles become harder, for example, when they contract during exertion. Neuromuscular disease also produces changes in muscle stiffness. So detecting these changes could provide a way to monitor the progress of the disease, NewScientist.com said.
Muscles also make noise as they contract. It is possible to hear the sound of the masseter muscle--a jaw muscle used in chewing--by placing your head, ear down, on the palm of your hand.
The sound produced by a muscle comes from the shortening of actomyosin filaments along the axis of the muscle. During contraction, the muscle shortens along its axis and expands across the axis, producing vibrations at the surface.
Karim Sabra and colleagues at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California, US, measured muscle vibrations by placing 16 sensors, each 1.5 centimetres apart, along the thigh of a healthy male volunteer while attaching increasing loads to his ankle.
This allowed them to measure the vibrations produced by the volunteer’s vastus lateralis thigh muscle under different stresses.
The researchers used the sensor array to follow vibrations in muscle fibres across the muscle as it contracts. The velocity of these vibrations depends on the local muscle stiffness. By measuring velocity variations as the weight increased, the team was able to build up a comprehensive picture of the muscle’s elastic properties under different conditions.
The researchers say it should be easy to monitor the progression of muscular diseases after analysing more muscles and building up a database of vibration responses.
The key advantage of the new technique is that it is non-invasive. This means that it does not require external sources, such as indentation or ultrasound, to produce the propagating waves.