from your science librarian's desk

Record now and smell-back later

Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan are building an odour recorder capable of doing just that. Simply point the gadget at a freshly baked cookie, for example, and it will analyse its odour and reproduce it for you using a host of non-toxic chemicals.

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Killer tomatoes attack disease 

The aim is to create affordable vaccines for HIV and the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that could be easily grown and processed in the countries where they are most needed. So far, none of the 90 or so potential vaccines against HIV have proved successful and, though a vaccine already exists for HBV, it is too expensive to be used by poorer countries.

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Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s research makes important progress 

Scientists in the US have praised new research which has paved the way for greater insights into the earliest stages of neurodegenerative diseases. The brain disorders, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease, are linked to oxidative stress, cell damage caused during metabolism when oxygen in the body becomes more chemically reactive.

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Scientists believe they will soon be able to detect ‘gravity waves’ 
They come from the furthest depths of space and are born out of some of the most violent events imaginable – from the explosions of stars to the collisions of black holes. Yet they are one of the most elusive phenomena in the Universe, so elusive that there is every chance that they have passed straight through your body without your realising it.

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Mysterious Pear-Shaped Object Orbiting Saturn 

Looking a little like a sideways Mr. Potato Head sans limbs, the Cassini space probe photographed this unknown object. Break out the tin-foil hats.

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