All things Science

NASA's first-ever deep space craft, Orion, has been powered on for the first time, marking a major milestone in the final year of preparations for flight.

New research from the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, and the University of Minnesota Center for Immunology has identified key proteins that influence immune response strategies, a finding that could influence new vaccination approaches. The study, published in the latest edition of Nature Immunology, looked closely at the KLF2 and S1P1 genes, and how their expression impacted the immune strategy of a cell.

A cure for baldness doesn't leap to mind when one ponders the next advance in stem cell research, but whoever manages to do it stands to become very rich. Scientists around the world have already grown liver and brain cells in the laboratory using cell samples from humans.

With Google Glass just around the corner, augmented reality is finally becoming a realistic part of our foreseeable future. The idea of AR - that we could dynamically edit information into (or out of) a live video feed as it's being displayed - has never been undercut by software or hardware power, but by the simple fact that the concept requires both a camera and a display.

Interactive mirrors are no longer CGI-enhanced props in sci-fi movies. Cybertectures Internet-connected mirror has the potential to monitor our health and let us update Facebook while we brush our teeth. The WSJs Tom DiFonzo reports.

Viruses come in an enormous number of shapes and forms. As we begin to understand them more, the hope is we might be able to control them better, says Carl Zimmer. And who knows, the day might come where we can treat them as friends not enemies.