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A new study shows that the machinery that regulates gene function during embryo development may be the same apparatus used to form memories—a finding that could pave the way for new therapies for certain mental illnesses. Neuroscience long held that when a fetus is fully developed, a process called DNA methylation stops. (DNA methylation involves adding a bulky methyl group to a gene’s DNA backbone, which obstructs the process of translating it into a protein....

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hip and knee replacements, two of the fastest-growing U.S. medical procedures, are subject to huge - and apparently random - price variations within the same geographical areas, a new insurance industry study said on Wednesday. The study by Blue Cross Blue Shield [BCBSFL.UL] health insurers adds to the evidence of massive disparities between what different hospitals and medical practices charge in the world’s most expensive healthcare system....

In the 1970s, refrigerators were growing in size—and energy consumption. In one of the more successful government-supported programs for energy-efficient technology, research and development of better compressors now have provided refrigerators that are larger still—but use roughly the same amount of energy as the smaller iceboxes of the past. Similar examples of the federal government at work range from the creation of an industry for producing natural gas from coal seams to the ongoing Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), a small-scale funding agency with outsized ambitions....

The planets of our solar system follow nice, predictable orbits, but it was not always so. In the chaotic early days of the solar system, Jupiter and its fellow giant planets seem to have migrated from their birthplaces into the stable orbits that we observe today. The migration of giant planets has been invoked to explain a number of features of planetary systems, such as the uneven spacing among the objects of the Asteroid Belt in our solar system....

Fish are adept trackers of prey, able to detect the trace of another fish more than a minute after it has swum past. A group of German researchers has now deconstructed that aquatic ability by modeling what fish wakes look like and how fish use cues from those wakes to follow prey. The research is set to be published in Physical Review Letters. When their prey is out of sight and beyond earshot, fish rely on an intricate array of sensors below the skin....

The night sky is filled with blips and flashes, a constantly changing sea of lights. Some of these changes are from Earth-bound happenings such as aircraft flying overhead, but some are from distant sources in space. Astronomers hunt for these fleeting phenomena, known as astronomical transients, by observing the sky regularly and looking for differences that appear. Researchers recently found a transient that outshines all others like it—a supernova known as AT2020mrf....

By Edwin Cartlidge When Apple’s hugely successful iPad burst onto the market in April last year, a pioneer in plastic electronics took a body blow. Halting the launch of its own thin, lightweight Que e-reader, the company Plastic Logic, based in Mountain View, Calif., seemed in dire straits. But last week, it all looked rather different. Plastic Logic finalized a deal worth $200 million with a consortium headed by the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (Rusnano), the state-owned venture-capital company for nanotechnology, and says it will use the money to produce a more advanced reader at a new state-of-the-art factory on the outskirts of Moscow....

Up to 20 percent of pregnant women may experience preeclampsia, a dangerous precursor to eclampsia, which brings on fatal seizures. Because the most common treatment for preeclampsia is early delivery–which can put both mother and baby at risk–researchers are eager to discover the cause of the disease and develop new treatments. To that end, findings published online this week by the journal Nature Genetics, could help. Scientists report the discovery of a gene associated with susceptibility to preeclampsia....

The watchmaker in the 1920s who de­vised the self-winding wristwatch was on to a great idea: mechanically harvesting energy from the wearer’s moving arm and putting it to work rewinding the watch spring. Today we are beginning to create extremely small energy harvesters that can supply electrical power to the tiny world of nano­scale devices, where things are measured in billionths of a meter. We call these power plants nano­generators. The ability to make power on a minuscule scale allows us to think of implantable biosensors that can continuously monitor a patient’s blood glucose level, or autonomous strain sensors for structures such as bridges, or environmental sensors for detecting toxins—all running without the need for replacement batteries....

Rivers act as Earth’s arteries and veins, providing sustenance and sweeping away waste to keep terrestrial habitats in shape. By that measure, England is unhealthy: a startling 86 percent of its rivers do not meet water-quality standards, posing a risk to wildlife and human health. A new study offers hope. Invertebrate biodiversity in one Thames River tributary has increased in the past 30 years, thanks to an adjustment in wastewater treatment, scientists at the U....

“Be present.” This is the mantra of mindfulness meditation and a supposed key to self-awareness and acceptance. In one type of mindfulness exercise, the goal is to perform routine activities with a heightened sense of attention. “Try to take the time to experience your environment with all of your senses—touch, sound, sight, smell and taste. For example, when you eat a favorite food, take the time to smell, taste and truly enjoy it,” recommends one Mayo Clinic article....

When Kate Rubins heard back from NASA in 2009, she traded her clean suit for a spacesuit. Rubins, a trained virologist, is a member of the 20th group of astronauts chosen by the space agency, and she is poised to make her first trip to the ISS this month. Since her selection, she has closed up her laboratory at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and undergone extensive training for space that included prolonged underwater sessions and military pilot courses....

Three red snakelike devices bobbing in the waves three miles (4.8 kilometers) off the coast of Agucadoura, Portugal, represent the first swell of what developers hope will be a rising tide of wave power projects. Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power, Ltd., (PWP) has since September been working with asset management firm Babcock & Brown, energy provider Energias de Portugal, and Efacec (a Portugese maker of electromechanical devices) on the Agucadoura project. This first phase will cost about $13 million and generate up to 2....

Roger N. Anderson, a professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, explains. Plate tectonics determines the location of oil and gas reservoirs and is the best key we have to understanding why deserts and arctic areas seem to hold the largest hydrocarbon reserves on earth. But there are other important locations of large reserves: river deltas and continental margins offshore. Together, these four types of areas hold most of the oil and gas in the world today....

Before the end of the year, employees at Ubiquitous Energy, a company in Redwood City, Calif., will gather in a window-lined conference room to stare toward the future. That’s because their new glass panes will offer more than a stunning view of the arid mountains and blues skies of the North California landscape. They will also double up as solar panels, able to power the company’s lights, laptops and air conditioners....

Scientists and casual observers alike have known for years that ravens and their corvid relatives are extremely smart. But most studies use single experiments that provide a limited view of their overall intelligence. “Quite often, in single tasks, you’re just testing whether the bird can understand that you’re hiding something,” says Simone Pika, a cognitive scientist at Osnabrück University in Germany. A new study that that tries to address that deficit provides some of the best proof yet that ravens, including young birds of just four months of age, have certain types of smarts that are on par with those of adult great apes....

For many people who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, the most emblematic space missions aren’t the pioneering flights of Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard or John Glenn. Or the audacious Apollo moon landings, or even the decades-spanning orbital journeys of space shuttles and Soyuz rockets to and from the International Space Station. Instead, the missions that have defined a generation’s conception of the space age are those of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, twin spacecraft launched on a “Grand Tour” of the outer planets in the late summer of 1977....

What to expect for Apple’s iPad event October 22 is Apple’s big chance to show off what’s expected to be the last batch of products for the year. A little more than a month after releasing its latest pair of iPhones, Tuesday’s event – the invitations for which proclaim “We still have a lot to cover” – should bring new versions of the iPad, as well as updated Macs and a price and release date for OS X Mavericks....

What do you do when you cannot figure out how to finish a tricky task at work? Or you are lost on back roads? Or you are trying a new do-it-yourself project in your house and just cannot seem to make it look like the photograph that inspired you on Pinterest? In life when you are stuck, there are many solutions. For example, you could invest more time and effort by brainstorming alternative approaches, using trial and error or looking up tricks of the trade online....

By Aaron Mendelson SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California dream of owning a house with a sparkling swimming pool is drying up for would-be swimmers in communities across the state as some local water districts have banned homeowners from filling empty pools in drought-stricken areas. The restrictions come as California struggles through its third year of a catastrophic drought that has threatened a half-million acres of farmland, dried up reservoirs and shrunk the mountain snowpack that provides drinking water for millions of people....