Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing. The work is published online today on the Science Express Web site.

About 15,000 years ago, some of the largest mammals in North America disappeared off the face of the Earth.

AP - Hoping to sway lawmakers, two of the state's most famous residents and one of its former governors joined groups opposed to the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in announcing a push for Town Meeting Day votes on whether the plant should keep operating past...

AP - Rep. Shelley Moore Capito says she's troubled by what she heard in a meeting with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson.

From Western Illinois University: Once upon a time, in order to trace the path of a meal from your table to the source, you may only have had to take a short jaunt to a nearby field. But in these ...

Reuters - Lifeboats and military helicopters rescued hundreds of people overnight in northern England and a policeman was killed as torrential rain flooded homes, washed away bridges and closed...

Surplus biomass from the production of flax shives, and generated from Brassica carinata, a yellow-flowered plant related to those which engulf fields in spring, can be used to produce bioethanol. This has been suggested by two studies carried out by Spanish and Dutch researchers and published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.

(PhysOrg.com) -- "Carbon nanotubes are exciting for fundamental physics, and for potential technological applications," Nadya Mason tells PhysOrg.com. "However, we are generally limited in the way that we can study them. Many of these limitations have to do with controlling tunneling, or the way electrons move on and off the nanotube." In order to overcome this limitation, Mason, a scientist at...

Winning entries of a photographic competition celebrating the birth of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution

On Friday, Cloud Engines released its newest version of the Pogoplug, a small "multimedia sharing device" that connects hard drives to the Internet and allows a user to access the files remotely. The company described Pogoplug as "your own personal cloud that broadcasts safely from your home." You connect Pogoplug to your router by Ethernet, attach hard drives or USB flash drives, and then...

SPACE.com - New images show the "last meal" of a giant cannibal galaxy as it gobbles down a smaller spiral galaxy, which has been twisted and warped from being devoured.

Atlantis' astronauts anxiously awaited word on the birth of one crewman's daughter Friday, as they moved more supplies into the International Space Station and geared up for another spacewalk. Astronaut Randolph Bresnik was about to become a father for the second time. His wife, Rebecca, was due to give birth Friday back home in Houston. They already have a son who is 3 1/2. Bresnik, 42, a...

AP - Russia lacks a viable program for developing a new spacecraft and risks losing its place as a leader in space travel, a veteran Russian cosmonaut said in an interview published Friday.

From the University of Georgia: Uga VII, the legendary Georgia mascot who roamed the sidelines at Bulldog football games, died unexpectedly Thursday morning in Savannah. He died of heart-related causes according to owner Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler. He was four ...

The macabre remains of the famous, once-damned astronomer were spotted at an auction.

LiveScience.com - Robot spy planes are harnessing alternative energy to make them more covert and longer lasting than ever.

Reuters - Residents of a small rural Pennsylvania town sued Cabot Oil & Gas Corp on Friday, claiming the company's natural-gas drilling has contaminated their water wells with toxic chemicals, caused sickness and reduced their property values.

Museum launches contest for photos inspired by Darwin

(PhysOrg.com) -- When NASA's Cassini spacecraft began orbiting Saturn five years ago, a dozen highly-tuned science instruments set to work surveying, sniffing, analyzing and scrutinizing the Saturnian system.

(PhysOrg.com) -- When foreign invaders trip the immune system`s alarm, antibodies need to be specially sculpted to attack them head on. New research now shows that gene segments called enhancers control the reshuffling of antibody genes that makes such a precise and coordinated attack possible.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers has implemented support for 'trusted computing' in a commercially available version of the open source operating system Linux, breaking new ground in the global drive toward more secure computing environments.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Glaxo-SmithKline has joined forces with Nabi Pharmaceuticals to produce a vaccine to help smokers give up their addiction permanently.