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LA JOLLA, CA -- Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in California and the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed a "biological computer" made entirely from biomolecules that is capable of deciphering images encrypted on DNA chips. Although DNA has been used for encryption in the past, this is the first experimental demonstration of a molecular cryptosystem of images based on DNA computing.

The study was published in a recent online-before-print edition of the journal Angewandte Chemie.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Shark attacks in the U.S. declined in 2011, but worldwide fatalities reached a two-decade high, according to the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File report released today.

While the U.S. and Florida saw a five-year downturn in the number of reported unprovoked attacks, the 12 fatalities — which all occurred outside the U.S. — may show tourists are venturing to more remote places, said ichthyologist George Burgess, director of the file housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

For all those who have wondered where they'd be without their mothers, a study reported in the February Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, puts a whole new spin on the question. Mice whose mothers pass along a mutant copy of a single imprinted gene can't keep themselves warm and die soon after leaving the comfort of the nest. The findings also reveal that the babies require a second round of heat-generating brown fat to survive.

"When that second wave is delayed, it gets them in the end," said Anne Ferguson-Smith of the University of Cambridge.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have learned how to improve the performance of sensors that use tiny vibrating microcantilevers to detect chemical and biological agents for applications from national security to food processing.

The microcantilevers - slivers of silicon shaped like small diving boards - vibrate at their natural, or "resonant," frequency. Analyzing the frequency change when a particle lands on the microcantilever reveals the particle's presence and potentially its mass and composition.

CHICAGO --- Brooding in your apartment on Saturday afternoon? A new smart phone intuits when you're depressed and will nudge you to call or go out with friends.

It's the future of therapy at a new Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine center where scientists are inventing web-based, mobile and virtual technologies to treat depression and other mood disorders. The phone and similar projects bypass traditional weekly therapy sessions for novel approaches that provide immediate support and access to a much larger population.

An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology.

The researchers found they could record information using only heat - a previously unimaginable scenario. They believe this discovery will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but more energy-efficient too.

When it comes to diets, cookies and cake are off the menu. Now, in a surprising discovery, researchers from Tel Aviv University have found that dessert, as part of a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that also includes proteins and carbohydrates, can help dieters to lose more weight — and keep it off in the long run.