It's starting. Satellite images have revealed that the Arctic ice has retreated from its neighboring continents. The region has become an island for the first time in recorded human history. A further sign indicating that the North Pole will lose its ice this year. More details in the full article.

With the vast size of our galaxies, it's easy to get lost in such a massive space, it seems that mini-galaxies have gone missing. Scientists are now wondering where all the mini-galaxies have gone. Have they just disappeared completely? Or have they merged with other galaxies? Details in the full article.

Ever wondered about atoms? Well, you're not alone. IBM scientists have taken their thoughts on atoms to whole new level. In fact, they were able to measure the force needed to push a single atom through the use of a tuning fork. Find out more in the full article.

Time to geek out a bit here. In the current research race into nanotechnology, the idea of using DNA structures for nanoscale robots or machines isn't new though precise control over these structures has never been their strongest point. But now researchers from the UK and Germany have discovered a way to create a custom DNA structure that can be controlled remotely, using DNA signals to trigger reconfiguring events. More at the full story.

What used to be a fine art confined to mind reading stalls in carnivals, such practices may soon move to more practical uses in society with much more credibility.

German scientists have conducted a study using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) devices to help determine specific brain patterns and eventually read a person's thoughts and intentions from them. Check out the full article for more details!

 A 46 centimeter (18 inch) fossilized claw of a prehistoric scorpion was recently unearthed at a quarry site in Germany. The huge claw found once belonged to an ancient sea scorpion 8 feet in length!

Want to know more of this nightmarish creature? Read more in the full article.

A team of Japanese, German, and Canadian researchers recently found out that our left ear is the one responsible for picking up desired sounds whenever confronted with a cacophony of competing noises. This fits well with the already accepted fact that speech signals are processed in the left hemisphere of our brain. 

Despite that, however, scientists are quite unaware as to how we are able to keep up a conversation, for example, in the middle of a loud party or gathering. Know the full details of this study right after the jump!

An estimated 10 million people worldwide suffer from blindness due to corneal damage or disease. However, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute in Munich, Germany has developed an artificial cornea which adheres to eye cells and could be used as a safer alternative to other corneal operations being used on those deprived of sight.

The team, led by Joachim Storsberg, head of the Fraunhofer Institute's medical polymer research unit in Munich, Germany developed this new artificial cornea for a way to replace the current implants which usually end up being covered by excess corneal tissue. The new implant instead is made from a protein-coated polymer which adhere's to the cells in the eye and greatly relieves most complications, such as tissue rejection, accompanied by other conventional transplants.

The biggest advantage of this new artificial cornea is the fact that the center of the implant remains clear of excess corneal tissue. The cornea is coated with a protein that attracts existing corneal cells and isolates the center from any excess tissue. Because of this, the implant can be sutured directly to the eye and completely eliminates the need for any donor corneal tissue.

John Huang, an assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Yale University School of Medicine, attests to the effectiveness of this new implant. He notes the huge advantage of this implant has due to the short supply of donor corneal tissue nowadays.

For the 39.5 million people (according to UNAIDS and WHO) in the world living with AIDS today, a glimmer of hope may be appearing in the guise of Dr. Indrani Sarkar's research. The doctor and a scientific team have recently developed an enzyme that, under laboratory conditions, has successfully destroyed the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV). Dr. Sarkar explained that the enzyme, dubbed Tre, eliminates the virus by removing it from the human genome. As the doctor explained:

In laymans terms, it's an engineered enzyme which recognises sequences in the HIV genome that is duplicated, integrated virus and by the process of recombination, it cuts out the virus from the genome.

Dr. Sarkar's enzyme was based on research done for her 2002 PhD thesis at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, while the Tre enzyme was developed after a year. Dr. Sarkar's research further indicates that Tre and its 126 "cycles of mutation" can completely remove HIV from the human genome within three months.

But while these early lab results have proven to be very promising, Sarkar admitted that this experimental treatment will not be reaching clinics for a very long time - about five to 20 years to be exact. I'll have to say I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed on this one...for the sake of AIDS victims out there who deserve a better chance at life.

Normally, shedding a few pounds - or if you follow the metric system, kilos - spells good news for the average person. But, if you happen to be Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, Paris, you'd probably feel that this could spell trouble for the scientific community.

Nope, we're not talking about Mr. Davis' waistline here - the loss in weight is being attributed to a 118-year-old cylinder that's the internationally recognized constant for the kilogram.

Davis explained that by comparing this cylinder's weight with other duplicate weights, they discovered that the prototype - made back in 1889 - lost 50 micrograms. That's approximately the weight of a fingerprint, meaning those extra notches on your scale are probably due to your extra serving of pie, not because of this minute fluctuation.

But while normal folks aren't expected to feel the effects of this discovery, Davis did note that organizations like the U.S. customary system might run into problems. "They depend on a mass measurement and it's inconvenient for them to have a definition of the kilogram which is based on some artifact," he said. The scientific community might also experience complications - inconsistent metric constant can have considerable effects on calculation for electric generation.

At this point, it's still unclear if the "original" kilogram did indeed lose weight, or if its later kilogram cylinder copies are simply heavier. This was the point raised by senior researcher Michael Borys of Germany's National Measures Institute in Braunschweig.

The whole matter is scheduled to be discussed this November in Paris by a panel of scientists. Specific topics to be touched on are other possible (and more accurate) calculations for not just the kilogram (for weight), but the Kelvin (for temperature), and the mole (for precise amounts).The kilogram cylinder itself, made of platinum and iridium alloy, might also be replaced with more reliable constants. One proposal calls for a Silicon-28 isotope crystal shaped as a sphere.