A piconewton (pN) tension gauge reveals that less than 12 pN suffices to activate Notch.

Authors: Xuefeng Wang, Taekjip Ha

A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.

Listen to stories on paying for blood, cockroach adaptations, the future of a long-running natural experiment, and more.

A vaccine that uses one virus to deliver components of a second virus elicits T cells that recognize noncanonical epitopes. [Also see Perspective by Goonetilleke and McMichael]

Authors: Scott G. Hansen, Jonah B. Sacha, Colette M. Hughes, Julia C. Ford, Benjamin J. Burwitz, Isabel Scholz, Roxanne M. Gilbride, Matthew S. Lewis, Awbrey N. Gilliam, Abigail B. Ventura, Daniel Malouli, Guangwu Xu, Rebecca Richards, Nathan Whizin, Jason S. Reed, Katherine B. Hammond, Miranda Fischer, John M. Turner, Alfred W. Legasse, Michael K. Axthelm, Paul T. Edlefsen, Jay A. Nelson, Jeffrey D. Lifson, Klaus Früh, Louis J. Picker

Saturn's Meteoroid Crash | Hot Enough to Melt Iron | Double Vision | Early Mayan Architects | Where Parkin Parks | Viruses and Congenital Disorders | Animal Culture | Daylight Determines Dopamine | Pulsar Tests Gravity | How Copper Clicks | Tracking Secreted Proteins | Balancing Act | One Protein, Two Probes | A Wing by Another Name?

Geochemistry: Lost N Found | Immunology: SREBPs for T Cell Expansion | Cell Biology: Haste Makes Waste | Cell Biology: Monocytes on the Prowl | Biomedicine: A Delicate Balance in Fragile X | Physics: A Very Dilute Superconductor | Medicine: Fugitive Fungi No More

Radioactive Microbes Nuke Tumor Cells

Authors: Naoki Nagata, Shinya Yamanaka

In science news around the world this week, public health officials in South Wales are trying to contain a measles outbreak; questions are still spinning around the legality of a geoengineering experiment conducted last summer in international waters; a magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck below the surface of Ya'an, China; and more.

This week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that in January lakes Huron and Michigan dipped to their lowest point since monitoring began in 1860. They predict that lake levels will rise this summer, but not by much.

Pharmacologists Garret FitzGerald and Carlo Patrono have won the prestigious Grand Prix Scientifique, given annually by the Institut de France for work in cardiovascular health, and French geneticist, World War II hero, and science writer François Jacob has died.

Nearly a month after the first reported cases of people infected with the bird flu virus, puzzles remain about how it made the jump to humans, how to prevent transmission, and how frequently an infection causes disease.

Authors: Mara Hvistendahl, Dennis Normile, Jon Cohen

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators unveiled an overhaul to the nation's immigration policies that hopes to create new funding streams to strengthen STEM education.

Authors: David Malakoff, Jeffrey Mervis

Arrangement of urban ceremonial space reveals Maya sophistication that was probably not adopted from the Olmec.

Author: Heather Pringle

Physicists working with an ultrasensitive particle detector deep underground reported three blips that could be particles of dark matter—suggesting that weakly interacting massive particles might not be far off.

Author: Adrian Cho

Early next month, scientists will break ground on Sirius, a synchrotron x-ray source whose energy and brightness will rival those of the best machines in the world.

Author: Lizzie Wade

The U.S. Supreme Court is trying to determine whether patents on the cancer-linked genes BRCA1and BRCA2 are legitimate.

Author: Eliot Marshall

North Korea has one of the highest TB rates outside sub-Saharan Africa and a burgeoning drug-resistance problem. A remarkable unusual collaboration is hoping to turn the tide.

Author: Richard Stone

Paleoanthropologists announced a modern feature in a rare, 1.4-million-year-old hand bone from Kenya, filling a 1-million-year gap in the fossil record and showing when key adaptations to toolmaking arose.

Author: Ann Gibbons

A team described 1.5-million-year-old footprints of at least six individuals walking together across the sand at Ileret, Kenya. Coupled with experiments with living people, the researchers concluded that the size and direction of the prints suggest a party of males out hunting or on patrol, an example of male coalitionary behavior also seen in chimpanzees.

Author: Michael Balter