Spider silk alone is stronger than steel, but researchers in Halle Germany have found that it can be made even stronger. A new paper, published today in Science reports that spider silk can be infused with metals such as aluminum, zinc and titanium.

Metals are not unheard of as strengtheners in the natural world. Proteins within jaw of the Nereis marine worm, for instance, contain both copper and zinc. But such structures are usually found in rigid body parts, such as claws or stingers. So scientists wanted to try infusing something flexible with metal. For that, they turned to drag line silk—that's used to form the outer rim and spokes of the web – from the Araneaus spider.

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It's long been assumed that marine mammals in the pinniped group – seals, sea lions and walrus – evolved from a land-based common ancestor, but until now, no definitive fossil evidence had materialized.

A newly discovered species, Puijila darwini, which lived in the Artic during the Miocene (23 to 5 million years ago), promises to be that missing link, reports a study published online today in Nature. The well-preserved skeleton was found on Devon Island in Nunavut, Canada, an area that would have had a much more temperate climate when the P. darwini roamed the region.

"Puijila is the evolutionary evidence we have been lacking for so long," Mary Dawson, a curator emeritus of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

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Today marks the 39th annual Earth Day, an idea hatched by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1969 to "shake up the political establishment and force this issue into the national agenda," according to the Earth Day Network, a nonprofit that helps organize the day.

But way back before global warming was a household term and canvas totes were a fashionable alternative to shopping bags, environmental supporters started with the basics: recycling, energy use, pesticides and population growth, to name a few.

So how much have actions and attitudes about saving the earth changed since then? Mark Fischetti, managing editor of Scientific American Earth 3.0 magazine, reflects that, "Back in the '70s, Earth Day was kind of this quirky, one-day grassroots event. It raised a little awareness, but the next day it was gone… Now it's on the radar every single day, it's in the headlines every single day."   

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Newborns who needed support breathing—either oxygen or chest pumping—had a higher risk of having a lower IQ by age eight, even if they showed no signs of brain disease or impairment, according to a new analysis published online today in The Lancet. Babies who don't start breathing right away or have a low heart rate usually undergo some sort of resuscitation to ensure survival and adequate oxygen flow to the brain to prevent permanent damage.

The new findings are based on a review of the medical records of more than 5,800 babies born in the U.K. between 1991 and 1992. The researchers, from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, found that infants who were resuscitated at birth but did not show any symptoms of neonatal cognitive impairment had an absolute risk of 9.8 percent of having a low (80 or below) IQ score, compared with a 6.5 percent risk of the baseline group that didn't need—or receive—resuscitation. Those infants who received resuscitation and were still diagnosed with encephalopathy (brain disease) had a 23 percent absolute risk of having a low IQ by eight years of age.

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Tobacco use among active-duty military personnel is almost double what it is in the civilian population, and while smoking has decreased overall in the U.S., it's been on the rise in the military since 2002. To change that, the Department of Defense (DoD) is looking to…videogames?

The government agency has awarded researchers at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston a $3.7 million grant create a video game that will deter soldiers from smoking and help those who already do to quit.

"The video game in general is becoming more popular among researchers who want to deliver a health message to a target audience," says Alexander Prokhorov, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson, who will lead the work. Video games are also being used to teach people about nutrition, asthma and other health-related issues, he notes.

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The breezes of good fortune have been blowing through the wind power business according to the American Wind Energy Association's (AWEA) annual report, released this week.

Despite a slowing economy and a precipitous drop in oil prices last year, the industry reports a 70 percent jump in jobs (to 85,000 employees) between the end of 2007 and the end of last year as well as a doubling of demand for small wind turbines (those that can power up to 100 kilowatts – the size used for homes and small buildings).

A total of 8,545 megawatts of wind power came on line last year, but the estimates for this year are decidedly more modest (due in part to tougher credit) at 5,000 new megawatts.

The industry organization still expects to report fairly robust numbers for the first quarter of 2009, says Kathy Belyeu, AWEA's manager of industry information. But, she cautions that the numbers might be misleading because many of the projects were simply held over from 2008.

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Despite receiving flack from Republicans earlier this year, volcano monitoring is among the first programs to get federal stimulus dough from the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), the Associated Press reports.

Of the $140 million that the DOI is shelling out to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), $15.2 million is headed to bolster volcano monitoring programs in the National Volcano Early Warning System, which helped to alert officials to the early rumblings of Mount Redoubt in Alaska before it erupted last month. Also getting a hefty chunk of the cash, earthquake monitoring is receiving $29.4 million to update seismic stations.

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Twenty-five high-risk medical devices that hit the market more than 33 years ago – and are still in use today – were never subjected to scientific scrutiny by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But that's about to change, The New York Times reports.

For the first time, devices as diverse as pacemaker parts and female condoms will be assessed using the contemporary analysis standards, including reports on safety and effectiveness from any company that manufactures them.

Since 1976, when Congress passed the Medical Device Amendments to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the FDA has been in charge of ensuring that all new medical devices get the job done and do so safely. The agency made plans to re-evaluate devices that were already on the market, but many have been de facto grandfathered in (so to speak) – even though they fall in the highest risk category ("those that support or sustain human life" per the FDA's Web site).

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While people in the U.S. were twiddling their thumbs, Twittering about plans to see Fast and Furious or run to the grocery store yesterday, thousands of Moldovan youth were busy using the social messaging network to assemble a massive rally in response to Sunday's election results and the country's bust economy.

Protesters organized using Facebook and the Twitter tag #pman, which stands for Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, a large square in the capital city Chisinau, where the demonstrators gathered.

The protesters, some of whom pushed their way into government buildings, were reacting in part to the weekend's parliamentary elections, in which the Communist Party won half of the votes – enough to make changes to the constitution and select a president. The European Union recognized the election as legitimate, but some maintain that it was fixed. As the demonstration—and live Tweets—increased in fervor, Internet was cut off in the small eastern European country's capital Chisinau, and by this morning police there had reestablished control of the major offices, according to The New York Times.

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Storm chasers, get your cameras: Tornado season is here. From April to June, more tornadoes spin up across the U.S. than during any other period. And although they've been the topic of both scientific and cinematic fascination for decades, researchers still have a lot to learn about how these deadly storms form.

So starting next month, a nationwide project—known, appropriately, as VORTEX2 (aka the Verification of Rotation in Tornadoes EXperiment 2)—will begin collecting tornado and storm data from more than 900 square miles (2,330 square kilometers) in seven states (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas). With a team of more than 50 scientists, it's the largest organized twister investigation ever.

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