Dark matter on Earth? Scientists participating in the Dark Matter (DAMA) Project drew results that could be indicating the presence dark matter - results that mimicked those discovered five years ago. And guess what? The Italian scientists detected the activity 1.4 kilometers deep inside the mountain of Gran Sasso in Italy, where the DAMA observatory resides. Get more at the full story.

In the physical universe, we have time and space. These make up the four dimensions that we experience in our everyday lives. However, just because we can't experience it with the five sense we have doesn't mean they don't exist. String theory in theoretical physics suggests that there are as much as seven more dimensions in addition to timespace that we can't detect. Now, with the largest particle accelerator gearing up for operations later this year, scientists hope to detect these dimensions. Details in the full article.

Scientists from Harvard Medical School recently developed a method to turn ordinary skin cells to stem cells. The method is not only a great contribution to science, but it also solves a lot of moral dilemmas since stem cell research doesn't have to involve destroying human embryos anymore. The problem is, this may not entirely be the case: some researchers still believe that stem cells converted from skin cells are no substitute for embryonic stem cells.

There's no doubt that embryonic research does a great deal for creating more advanced medicine and medical techniques, but that's not the problem. The problem is that the means for harvesting stem cells usually involve destroying human embryos.

However, new research has started to create a process where skin cells act like stem cells. Should the research prove successful, the whole moral controversy surrounding stem cell research wouldn't an issue anymore. Find out more in the full article.

Scientists may have found a new source of fuel that won't dry up the earth's resources. US scientists found out that fructose, sugar found in fruit such as apples and oranges, can be converted into a new type of low carbon fuel for cars.

On the other hand, a British report says that all types of waste products, including plastic bags, can be used to make biodiesel fuel. Critics say, however, that biofuel is not the way to go. Farmers who realize how much they can make from making fuel switch to its production, neglecting food and driving up prices in the process.

Even so, it's not easy to ignore what the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered. Simple sugar fructose can actually be turned into fuel called dimethylfuran, which is more efficient than ethanol - it can store 40% more energy and doesn't evaporate as easy.

Sounds good? Hitting two birds in one stone can't get any better, if we can get both food and fuel from fruits alone. Of course, there's always a catch. It would cost 10 times more to set up a production facility that churns out fuel from sugar than building biofuel refineries. Oil companies will also no doubt complain against what seems to threaten their market.

Right now, we can't expect dimethylfuran for commercial use. In the near future, maybe. The time our cars are running sugar, those will be the good days.

Now that a possible cause of the widespread bee deaths has been found, maybe we could start getting them to produce more honey. Not for eating (although it tastes great), but for medicinal purposes. According to ABC News, researchers have found that spreading honey on a diabetic ulcer could prevent the need to amputate an infected foot.

"If we can prove that honey promotes healing in diabetic ulcers, we can offer new hopes for many patients, not to mention the cost benefit, and the issue of bacterial resistance," said Jennifer Eddy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine and Public Health. "The possibilities are tremendous."

A controlled trial to further study and promote the use of honey therapy for diabetics has already been launched. The therapy involves putting "a thick layer of honey onto the wound after dead skin and bacteria have been removed." According to Eddy, the honey kills bacteria due to its acidity and avoids the complication of bacterial resistance found with standard antibiotics.

Honey therapy is already being used in New Zealand for the treatment of bed sores. It is also being used as an alternative form of medicine in Europe. Dr. Eddy hopes to publish the results of her trial by 2008 or 2009.

Sleep is important. Okay, maybe eight isn't the magic number anymore, but sleep is important. Now, it seems that medical research into the nature of sleep is paying off as the UK Daily Mail reports scientists are working on a "Sleep Machine."

It is not made of magic sand and run by a guy named Sandman.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe that it is possible to induce or "stimulate" the brain into going to sleep mode. It revolves around making the brain produce "slow-wave activity" which is typical of deep, non-dream state (no rapid eye movement or REM) sleep.

These researchers used harmless magnetic pulses to produce these waves. The effect is to produce a deep-sleep power nap, equivalent, they say, to the restorative effects of eight hours of rest.

There is some skepticism regarding its therapeutic use. One sleep expert contends that the real challenge is getting insomniacs to sleep in the first place. Although this is the claimed objective of the U. of Wisconsin-Madison research, perhaps the contention is that it's not enough to simply trigger slow-wave activity and induce the effects of sleep... The patient has to actually sleep in the first place and not merely simulate it.

One neuroscientist and two veterinarians collaborated recently to understand further the meaning behind a dog's tail wagging. We're not certain why they did that and for what great cause but dog lovers and owners will surely be interested about their findings.

According to the study, dogs wag their tail mostly towards the right side if they feel fundamentally good and positive about someone or something. On the other hand, the wagging is more to the left whenever they're sad or harboring negative feelings. The study was conducted by scientist Giorgio Vallortigara from University of Trieste and veterinarians Angelo Quaranta and Marcello Siniscalchi from University of Bari.

Furthermore, the study was conducted in Italy using 30 family pets of mixed breed that have been enrolled in an agility training program. The dogs were placed in cages equipped with cameras capable of measuring exact angles of their tail wags. Four stimuli were then introduced: their owner, an unfamiliar human, a cat, and an unfamiliar dominant dog.

The testing lasted for a total of 25 days and each day consisted of 10 sessions each. The study implies that muscles in the right side of the tail reflect positive emotions. On the other hand, muscles in the left side of their tails mean negative feelings.

Richard J. Davidson, Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, believes that such findings can be used to further the study of asymmetry in the brain. Davidson is intrigued if dogs do show emotional asymmetry because the tails are placed in the mid-line of the dogs' bodies.

A study published in the November issue of the medical journal Radiology demonstrates how effective virtual colonoscopy is in diagnosing colon cancer. This opens the door for the increased avalability of virtual coloniscopy screenings to the general public, which can be covered by third-party health insurance providers, reports the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

You want to know why this news is exciting? Because you don't need a doctor to stick a tube camera up your butt and wiggle it around your gut to see if you've got colon cancer, which by the way, happens to be the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.

The traditional method: colonoscopy, or endoscopy through the rear (as opposed to through the mouth, which is to check for stomach cancers and ulcers), is dangerous because it risks punching holes in your large intestine which is not a pretty place to have bleeding holes in. Virtual colonoscopy, on the otherhand, produces 3D "fly-through" images of the intestines, thereby allowing doctors to take a virtual look inside and check for any abnormnal growths without the need for the nasty tubes.

Other advantages of  a virtual colonoscopy is that a person won't have to be sedated for the procedure, it's safer, easier, faster, less costly, and more convenient. The University of Wisconsin Medical School study was meant to prove how effective virtual colonoscopy was in diagnosing potential colon cancer polyps, as compared to the butt-aimed endoscope. Patients with suspect growths were referred to traditional colonoscopy, and when the results were compared to those that were taken via  virtual colonoscopy, the findings were in agreement in 65 of the 71 patients studied.

The potential of this diagnostic tool to help save lives cannot be emphasized more. With virtual colonoscopy we can now feel more comfortable - literally - when doctors need to take a look up our a** in our intestines to detect and head off potential cancers there. Improvements in technology and technique will also improve the successful diagnosis rate, lower costs, and make this more available to people everywhere, especially through insurance coverage.

Okay, now that the serious stuff's over, you can start cracking Uranus jokes.