Medical Xpress -- With a combination of synthetic biology and optogenetics, researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology published a paper in Science outlining their new technique which enables certain genes to be turned on simply by the switch of a light.

Optogenetics uses genetics and different optical methods to create and activate cells in living tissue with the use of light. Synthetic biology combines science and engineering to create new biological functions that are not found naturally.

Led by synthetic biologist Martin Fussenegger, the team used melanopsin which is a molecule that is found on neurons within the retina and is light sensitive. These molecules are responsible for keeping the biological clocks synchronized with day and night. When light hits these molecules, the melanopsin stimulates a molecular change that causes in influx of calcium ions and an electrical pulse.

Astronomers have probed into the distant universe and discovered that galaxies display one of two distinct behaviors: they are either awake or asleep, actively forming stars or are not forming any new stars at all.

Scientists have known for several years that galaxies in the nearby universe seem to fall into one of these two states. But a new survey of the distant universe shows that even very young galaxies as far away as 12 billion light years are either awake or asleep as well, meaning galaxies have behaved this way for more than 85 percent of the history of the universe. (Looking at galaxies farther away is like looking back in time when they were much younger, because of how long it takes the light they emit to reach us here on Earth.)

"The fact that we see such young galaxies in the distant universe that have already shut off is remarkable," said Kate Whitaker, a Yale University graduate student and lead author of the paper, which is published in the June 20 online edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

Missing until 2009, mummy's stomach found to contain lumps of last meal.

Hours before he died, "Ötzi" the Iceman gorged on the fatty meat of a wild goat, according to a new analysis of the famous mummy's stomach contents.

The frozen body of the Copper Age hunter was discovered in 1991 in the Alps of northern Italy, where he died some 5,000 years ago.

The circumstances surrounding Ötzi's death are not fully known, but the most popular theory - based in part on the discovery of an arrowhead in his back - is that he was murdered by other hunters while fleeing through the mountains.

Scientists previously analyzed the contents of Ötzi's lower intestine and determined that he ate a meal of grains along with possibly cooked red deer and goat meat up to 30 hours before his death.

But attempts using an endoscopic tool to sample Ötzi's stomach were unsuccessful.

The reason for the failure became clear in 2009, when scientists studying CAT scans of Ötzi discovered that the Iceman's stomach had shifted upward after death, to where the lower part of his lungs would normally be.

"Why it moved upward, we don't know," said Frank Maixner, a microbiologist at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy, who was involved in the new investigation.

The last time the sun erupted into a massive solar storm, the year was 1859. Northern Lights appeared over Cuba and Hawaii, and electrical currents from the blast set telegraph offices on fire.

But that was then. Scientists and government officials are worried a modern-day solar storm of the same proportion could wreak havoc on Earth, crippling communications and paralyzing power grids.

Massive solar storms, resulting in huge coronal mass ejections, usually happen just before the sun goes through a quiet phase. NASA officials announced earlier this week that we're poised to enter a below-average solar cycle soon, giving weight to concerns about how Earth would weather a solar storm like the one that happened in 1859.

"A similar storm today might knock us for a loop," said NASA physicist Lika Guhathakurta in a prepared statement. "Modern society depends on high-tech systems such as smart power grids, GPS, and satellite communications - all of which are vulnerable to solar storms."

Washington - Sunspot cycles -- those 11-year patterns when dark dots appear on the solar surface -- may be delayed or even go into "hibernation" for a while, a U.S. scientist said on Wednesday.

But contrary to some media reports, this does not mean a new Ice Age is coming, Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory said in a telephone interview.

"We have not predicted a Little Ice Age," Hill said, speaking from an astronomical meeting in New Mexico. "We have predicted something going on with the Sun."

The appearance of sunspots helps predict solar storms that can interfere with satellite communications and power grids.

Hill and other scientists cited a missing jet stream, fading spots and slower activity near the Sun's poles as signs that our nearest star is heading into a rest period.

"This is highly unusual and unexpected," he said in a statement released on Tuesday. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

Next, could tyre-kickers recharge 'leccy cars?

The pop-science vision of clothing that generates electrical culture has moved a step closer. Research at RMIT University and the Australian National University on thin-film piezo-electrics could help open the door to materials that recharge small devices like mobile phones from someone using the keyboard.

The study, published in Advanced Functional Materials, is an important practical step in efficient manufacturing of thin-film peizo-electrical devices.

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A long-running US military project aimed at producing a "refrigerator sized" laser raygun capable of being mounted on US combat aircraft has received further funding of just under $40m.

Mercury's origins may be very different from its sister planets, including Earth, based on early findings that show surprisingly rich deposits of sulfur on the ground, scientists said on Thursday.

Early findings from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury is forcing scientists to rethink how the planet closest to the sun formed and what has happened to it over the past 4 billion years.

NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging spacecraft -- nicknamed Messenger -- is three months into a planned year-long mission. It has also uncovered evidence of a lopsided magnetic field and regular bursts of electrons jetting through the magnetosphere.

"It's almost a new planet because we've never had this kind of observatory before," said lead researcher Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C.

Volcanoes appear to have played a rather large role in shaping Mercury, providing fresh material to fill its cratered face, but also possibly providing an unexpected supply of sulfur to the surface, a finding that suggests Mercury may have had different building blocks than Venus, Earth and Mars.

Boy, do we have the goodies for you this week. Several multi-object conjunctions, all for your viewing pleasure.

The first are morning events. As you all know, I am not a morning astronomer. However, there are occasions where I make an exception, this is one of them.

First, on Sunday morning, June 26, be outside and find a clear, uncluttered view to the east between 4:45 and 4:30 a.m. MDT.

High to the right is bright Jupiter, the largest of all the planets and just to its left is a very slender crescent moon.

They will be close enough to be in the same binocular field of view.

The next morning, Monday, June 27, an even thinner crescent will move down and left and stand between Jupiter and the tiny star cluster, The Pleiades, or M45, an awesome sight in binoculars.

Moving on to Tuesday, June 28, the moon will be between the Pleiades and the dim planet Mars (look just below the moon).

If you draw a line from Pleiades through the moon, past Mars and on down you will find bright Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, the Bull.

An international team of astronomers recently presented compelling evidence that our galaxy is teeming with lonely Jupiter-sized planets adrift between stars. Alone in the void, unattached to any parent sun, these cosmic orphans appear to fill the heavens in vast numbers. Extrapolating from what they observed, Takahiro Sumi, an astrophysicist at Osaka University, and his colleagues reported in the journal Nature that there could be as many as 400 billion of these lonely wanderers in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

Needless to say, the observation opened a whole new field for cosmic inquiry, and added force to the question that has intrigued scientists, philosophers, poets, religious believers, science-fiction devotees and every child who has ever gazed upward on a clear, moonless night: Are we alone?

As if on cue, NASA then announced that its Kepler spacecraft, two years into a three-and-a-half year mission to find Earth-size planets around nearby stars, had found a totally unexpected profusion of candidates. Of the 1,235 suspected planets spotted so far, moreover, about a third were in multiplanet solar systems like ours. Judging from these discoveries, it would appear that planets out there are as numerous as grains of sand. Twenty-five years ago, when I was a student in high school, only nine planets were known, all in our solar system. We learned their names and sequence from the sun, from the fleet-footed Mercury to icy Pluto. We learned of the runaway greenhouse effect that had stoked Venus to blistering temperatures and read about the giant storm that is Jupiter's red spot, and we gazed at pictures of the rings of Saturn that the Voyager spacecraft had sent back.