Gossamer Webs 1.3

* A new technology for making petrol from carbon dioxide and sunlight. The question, however, is whether this is truly viable.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18993-green-machine-cars-could-run-on-sunlight-and-co2.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=motoring-tech

* Most of us are aware of how smoking, by pregnant women, can have detrimental effects on the developing foetus. Research by Dr Stephen G Grant of University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute suggests that ‘similar mutational induction’ may also occur in pregnant women who are exposed to passive smoking. The resulting effects in the babies include birth weight fluctuations, survival, and lifelong susceptibility to diseases such as cancer.
You can download the paper, ‘Tobacco smoke exposure and somatic mutation in newborns’, from http://www.bentham.org/open/topedj

* And another cure from nature: Long-term use of Olive oil results in multiple effects against breast cancer
(paper on ‘Dietary olive oil and corn oil differentially affect experimental breast cancer through distinct modulation of the p21Ras signaling and the proliferation–apoptosis balance’ by Montserrat Solanas, Laura Grau, Raquel Moral, Elena Vela, Raquel Escrich and Eduard Escrich of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, as published in Carcinogenesis)
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/31/5/871?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Eduard+Escrich+&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
* A review on the paper published by Anderson et al on ‘Octopuses (Enteroctopus dofleini) Recognize Individual Humans’. Might be of use to fans of Paul the Octopus.
http://cephalove.blogspot.com/2010/07/octopus-sensory-systems-part-25.html

* I am not surprised by the following research (‘Fragrant Dioxane Derivatives Identify β1-Subunit-containing GABAa Receptor’), being someone who often wears jasmine on her hair. Basically, the smell of jasmine is very calming, comparable to that of valium and with absolutely no side-effects!
http://www.jbc.org/content/285/31/23985.abstract?sid=f51dab44-542c-48bf-915e-50b899716064