"Death galaxy" chip shows bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance at a surprising pace.

When attacked with antibiotics, bacteria can mutate rapidly in order to survive—it's what makes, for instance, the staph infection MRSA so dangerous. New research suggests that such bacterial evolution occurs even faster, and in a more predictable fashion, than anyone thought. Using a novel type of microfluidics chip, researchers have shown that bacteria can develop antibiotic resistance in less than 10 hours.

New report suggests an error in estimates of greenhouse gas emissions.

A scientific committee of the European Union has published a report arguing that EU policies favoring biofuels are based on a "serious" error in calculating the overall greenhouse gas emissions associated with the fuels. The result, says the committee, is an underestimation that could have "immense" climate-related consequences.

The policies, which include the EU's emissions trading system and renewable energy targets, do not adequately take into account the effects of land-use changes, the committee argues. It concludes that as a result, biofuels are often considered carbon-neutral when they may actually be adding carbon to the atmosphere.

Researchers find that giving rats the common stimulant Ritalin can revive them during general anesthesia.

After they've undergone general anesthesia, patients typically experience hours of sleepiness, disorientation, and confusion. But perhaps patients could be quickly stimulated into alertness. That's the surprising suggestion of a new study in the October issue of Anesthesiology, which finds that, in rats, the common stimulant methylphenidate (Ritalin) can help speed recovery from general anesthesia.

Can a garden hose to the stratosphere really keep the planet cool?

In October, British researchers supported by the U.K. government will attempt to pump water a kilometer into the air using little more than a helium balloon and a rubber hose. The experiment, which will take place at a military airfield along England's east coast, is meant as a test of a proposed geoengineering technique for offsetting the warming effects of greenhouse gases. If the balloon and hose can handle the water's weight and pressure, similar pipes rising 20 kilometers could pump tons of reflective aerosols into the stratosphere.

The Web giant reveals its energy use for the first time.

Google is the first major Web company to reveal exactly how much energy it uses—information that will help researchers and policy makers understand how the massive explosion of Internet usage and cloud computing is contributing to global energy consumption.

Google uses 260 million watts continuously across the globe, the company reported on Wednesday.

Researchers use brain imaging to detect patterns of brain activity associated with pain—a potential boon for doctors and drug developers.

Pain has always been in the eye of the beholder. Doctors evaluating patients, as well as scientists studying pain, have had to rely on subjective descriptions, making pain notoriously difficult to measure and track. A new study from Stanford University takes a first step toward an objective measure for pain.

Made from cheap, mass-producible parts, the device could help scientists learn how the brain directs movement.

An inexpensive microscope about the size of a gumdrop could allow scientists to peer into the inner workings of living, moving animals much more easily. The device is small and light enough—it weighs less than two grams—to be mounted atop a rodent's head, where it can capture the activity of up to 200 individual brain cells as the animal explores its environment.

That's more cells than can be monitored using an expensive two-photon microscope, which doesn't allow the animal to move, says Mark Schnitzer, a neuroscientist at Stanford University and one of the device's creators.

A new estimate suggests there's 80 percent less gas than previously thought. That may still be plenty.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) raised eyebrows last week when it released its latest estimate of the amount of "undiscovered technically recoverable" natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation, a rock formation that reaches through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and West Virginia. The estimated volume, around 84 trillion cubic feet (TCF), is 80 percent smaller than an estimate published earlier this year by the Energy Information Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Energy.

Apps that connect to medical monitors have been shown to improve the health of people with diabetes and hypertension—and could ease the burden on the health-care system.

App stores are exploding with programs designed to help people monitor their health using a smart phone. But the majority of these apps merely make it easier for patients to record health measures, such as weight or blood pressure. It's unclear if they actually significantly improve health behavior.

UCLA device is a step toward video displays and phones that could swell or shrink.

Stretchable electronics promise video displays that could be rolled up and tucked into a shirt pocket, or cell phones that could swell or shrink. Electronic sheets that could be draped like cloth would be a boon for robotic skin and embedded medical devices.

Now engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have taken a step toward these handy electronics by creating the first fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Previously, researchers had only been able to create devices that are bendable but can't stretch, or stretchable pieces that connect smaller, rigid LEDs.