Astronauts spending months in space lose significant bone strength, making them increasingly at risk for fractures later in life.

Through work originally designed to remove contaminants from soil, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and their Belgium colleagues at Hasselt University have identified plant-associated microbes that can improve plant growth on marginal land. The findings, published in the February 1, 2009 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, may help scientists design strategies for sustainable biofuel production that do not use food crops or agricultural land.

A genomewide scan of millions of genetic mutations has revealed four new DNA "hotspots" that affect the risk for psoriasis, a national group of researchers led by the University of Michigan and including several from the University of Utah School of Medicine has shown in a just-published study.