Tears and smiles bond secure mothers to baby – The sight of her baby’s smile or even its tears cause the reward centres in a mother’s brain to light up, according to an international functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, but only if the mother herself had a secure attachment to her own parent.
Smokestack scrubber – Korean researchers have developed a new, highly porous material that can soak up carbon dioxide efficiently and highly selectively. The material, characterised by X-ray diffraction and other techniques might one day be used to “scrub” out the greenhouse gas from power stations and factories that burn fossil fuels for energy
One from the vine – Kudzu is a weedy vine that has overgrown almost 10 million acres in the southeastern United States. However, it could one day sprout into a dietary supplement to helpe reduce metabolic syndrome in millions of people. Mass spectrometry and UV spectroscopy have now been used to identify and quantify the putatively active isoflavones in extracts of the vine by US scientists.