Everything's mini now, it goes to follow that they run on minibatteries as well. But there's no such thing as minibatteries... right? Wrong. MIT researchers have just created this breakthrough technology, and they used viruses for it.

Vehicle manufacturers have been more conscious in making engines and fuel products that are less hazardous to the environment. The race for a greener Earth couldn't be more appropriate with the maiden voyage of the world's first hybrid, fuel-efficient train from Paris to the French Champagne region this coming week.

Around 144 hybrid trains have been ordered across ten French regions, which will provide a much needed boost to regional travel in the country. The new trains will sport a hybrid of electrical and diesel power sources which can switch between the two without stopping.

Bombardier Transport, the Canadian company responsible for the construction of the prototype model, reported that the train traveled at a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) from Paris to the French town of Troyes in two hours.

Andre Navarri, the president of Bombardier said that the hybrid train produced 20 percent less emissions than a conventional diesel train. The new line of trains will definitely offer an environmentally friendly alternative and help ease up on Mother Earth's burdens even by a little bit.

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.

I only know France for - you know, museums, cafes, Napoleon, kissing and fries (yeah, you can call me culturally ignorant). But only recently, France has set a record for having the world's speediest train ride on conventional rails. The French train V150 buzzed off to a record speed of 357.2 mph, breaking the record of another conventional rail train that buzzed off to a speed of 320.2 mph, set by - why, another French train.

The speedy train ride has been made possible by Alstom Transports. France, Germany and Japan are competing for contracts on China's plans for building more than 7,500 miles of high-speed railways in coming years, at the cost of more than US$ 250 billion. The ride was a demonstration by France, to show how they excel in research, innovation and technology.

The V150 record fell short of another record made by the fastest train in the world, though, to be found in Japan. But the Japanese did not use conventional rails. Instead, the fastest train ride made by Japan, set at the record of 361 mph, has been made possible by another technology: the magnetically levitated train.

French President Jacques Chirac praised France's newest achievement as a magnificent demonstration of France's formidable capacities in research and innovation. The record-breaking trip made by V150 blasted off from Preny, east of Paris to Champagne at an impressive 15 minutes. Operator Eric Pieczac is very happy, feeling a mixture of pride and honor to be able to reach such speed.

Professor Paul Reiter, a scientific expert in malaria, of the Pasteur Institute of Paris, claimed that the United Nations report compiled in February about global warming and the greenhouse effect was a "sham." He claims that his name was included in the report along with 2,000 other leading scientists.

The list of names were claimed to have backed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report, although he was one to disagree with the reports' findings. His name was eventually removed after threatening legal action against the panel. He said, "That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists [have] agreed. It's not true."

So if global warming isn't caused by the greenhouse effect, what causes it? Well there's a lot of things in this world that can affect the weather, and not just greenhouse gases. Of course, pollution is still a bad thing. Carbon dioxide has to be dealt with anyway, even if it doesn't cause global warming. If you disagree, you'd better bring that to Uh-nold.

Philip Scott, emeritus professor of bio-geography and at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said:

The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on carbon dioxide production would be or indeed of continuing to produce carbon dioxide. It's ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2 [Celsius] or 3 [Celsius].

The side of the other half of the scientific community will be aired in a program this coming Thursday, entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle", which should raise questions against some evidences used to prove global warming. It will also spark fierce, possibly hostile, criticism from the majority of the scientific establishment.

We've all wondered what's the reason behind that enigmatic smile from Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci's 16th century masterpiece. Considered to be the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa underwent the most extensive three dimensional scan ever undertaken for scientists to unveil her secrets. And now, the results will finally be revealed.

Scientists from Canada's National Research Council (NRC) used special 3D technology to scan the picture on both sides for that high resolution 3D image data of the whole painting. According to the NRC, this will shed new light on the history and condition of the work, as well as the great master's technique in painting. Da  Vinci's delicate hazy effect, known as the "sfumato" method, has generated a lot of wonder and awe from experts and aficionados alike.

The findings will be unveiled today ahead of a public lecture in Ottawa, where the Council promises their Mona Lisa model to allow both art history specialists and the general public to get closer than ever before without risking damage to the real picture. The portrait itself will remain in the Louvre museum in Paris.

The woman in the world-renowned portrait has been identified as Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine merchant named Francesco de Giocondo.

While this may seem like good news and an advancement for art technology, one cannot help but wonder if this really is necessary. After all, there are certain things and secrets that were meant to be hidden. With these secrets revealed, it will definitely have an impact on Mona Lisa's mysterious aura, which is the basis of her appeal.

We'll keep you updated on more news on Mona Lisa and her secrets.

In the recent movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the heroine's father frequently pontificated on how virtually any word you could think of was ultimately derived from Greek. While that isn't generally accurate, it is true that virtually all of our scientific vocabulary is derived from Greek (and to a lesser extent, Latin).

The reason is Reason itself. In an age of superstition and myth, when most of the world's peoples cowered in fear of various gods and the dominator kings and priests that enforced their "will," the Greeks of the Classical period - roughly 2500 years ago - questioned much of what the rest of the world took for granted.

Rejecting the idea that some "god" placed "kings" in positions of absolute authority, they took the first steps toward democratic government, in which those with the power to make laws served at the pleasure of those they governed, and were answerable to the citizens. (Can you even imagine such a thing today?) In the course of questioning the "divine rights of kings," they also began to question the existence of gods.

Greeks were the first people in recorded history to attempt "scientific" explanations of the natural world. Although some of their ideas may seem "quaint" to us - such as the idea of "bodily humors" - they laid the foundation for today's scientific methods. Indeed, Aristotle's idea of everything in the world being made up of very small particles anticipated atomic theory by over 2,000 years.

It seems as if they could even teach us some things about cutting-edge nanotechnology.

Hairdressers in ancient Athens used a lead-based dye when coloring their clients' hair. This dye actually got into the strands of hair, forming lead crystals 5 nanometres across within the microstructure of the hair fibres. Considering that lead is toxic and has very bad effects on human brains, it's good that beauticians jettisoned this idea - at least in the hair salon.

Quantum scientists may find uses for it, however. A team at the French Museum's Research and Restoration Centre in Paris has discovered that a hair-like scaffold could be used to literally grow "quantum dots," which are microscopic crystals combining electrons in a way that makes it possible to exploit their "quantum properties." Previous attempts to grow quantum dots have not been successful, but this "hair-dye" method is showing great promise for quantum computing applications.

For asthmatics, dust is THE enemy. But for scientists, it's an ally. That is if we're talking about  intergalactic dust. Dust found around the remains of dead stars turn out to be the "prime ingredient" of all living things.

Let us rewind 160,00 years ago.  A humongous star, about 20 times larger than the sun, exploded. In 1987, the first light from the said explosion (known as a supernova) reached our planet for several months, and was called the SN 1987A. Stardust from the SN1987A were seen through an infrared telescope at the Gemini South Observatory in Chile.

The supernova dust were fused with superheated, X-ray emitting gas found within an equatorial ring around SN 1987A, created by stellar winds 600,000 years before the supernova. This ring of gas was invisible for nearly twenty years, until shockwaves from the supernova blast caught up with it. The expansion of the shockwaves heating of the gas and normally cool dust until they glowed in the infrared.

According to Patrice Bouchet of the Observatoire de Paris, "The collision between the ejecta of supernova 1987A and the equatorial ring was predicted to occur sometime in the interval of 1995 to 2007, and it is now underway." Studies reveal that the composition of the stardust is pure silicate, and less dust than expected were seen (a star as enormous as the SN1987 star is expected to produce more dust). It's possible that shockwaves from the supernova blast sent more stellar dust to oblivion than expected. Researchers claim that this discovery may have "broad implications for determining dust origins throughout the universe".

So does the saying, from dust you come and from dust you shall return ring true? Let us await for further words from scientists to find out.

This just goes to show how much we do not know about our universe and how things really behave and move about over the years even with the advancement of the human mind and technology. Prepare for a long read because recently, scientists have been busy debunking and questioning nature's fundamental laws and they have found discreprancies that will show that the value of certain fundamental parameters, such as the speed of light or the invisible glue that holds nuclei together, may have been different in the past. So constants, seems to not be real constants.

The said differences are small, a few ppms, but even the smallest of changes would mean that the laws of physics would have to be revised--if not completely rewritten. Plus aside from the three spatial dimensions that we have grown accustomed to (length, width, and height), it seems that we might need to make room for six more spatial dimensions.

The evidence for varying constants that scientists rely on comes primarily from quasar studies. A quasar is an astronomical source of electromagnetic energy, including light, that dwarfs the energy output of the brightest stars. This one is bright and usually powered by black holes. It may readily release energy in levels equal to the output of hundreds of average galaxies combined.

Astronomer Michael Murphy heads the team that has been studying the spectra of this ancient light to determine if the early universe was different than now. Specifically, they look at absorption lines, which are due to gas clouds between us and the quasars. These lines are like fingerprints and DNA, it reveals what's in the clouds. All seems well until in 1999, the team found out that these fingerprints and DNA change in time.

How? By using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, they detected a frequency difference between billion-year-old quasar lines and the corresponding lines measured on Earth. Also they  recently performed careful lab experiments to confirm that there is indeed a shift in the quasar spectra, since some of those Earth-bound lines are not well characterized.

So, what does this mean? Because of the difference between quasars of today and those of billion years ago, this was interpreted as indicating that light was faster in the past, or that the electron had a weaker charge. Thus grilling the Fundamental Law of the Speed of Light and that electrons had a weaker charge.

Another finding from the team of Patrick Petitjean in the Astrophysical Institute of Paris revealed that a change in the proton to electron mass ratio from molecular absorption lines in quasar spectra. Which coincides with the observed electrron charge change in the Murphy study.

And talk about rewriting the Laws of Physics. If this is proven to be accurate and true, this would be a deviance in Albert Einstein's Theories-- the Equivalence Theory which basically says that  any experiment testing nuclear or electromagnetic forces should give the same result no matter where or when it is performed; and the Gravitational Theory or general relativity.