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In our homes, we are aware of the need to recycle paper, plastic and glass. But agriculture has other problems, and one of the biggest is chicken feathers. We may be able to make clothes out of them. Now scientists are trying to figure out how to recycle these feathers into biodegradable plastic, which would solve OUR disposal problems as well!

In LiveScience.com, Jeanna Bryner reports that chickens are related to the largest dinosaur that every roamed the earth: Tyrannosaurus rex. Rex died 68 million years ago, but some of its bones have been found that still contain soft tissue, which can be tested for DNA. A comparison with chicken genes showed that the two species are related.
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Before the evolution of photosynthesis, which produces chlorophyll, the first life on earth might have been purple, rather than the green that dominates today. The world is so very green because chlorophyll in plants absorbs red and blue wavelengths and reflects green ones. Before this, red and blue, which combine to form purple, may have predominated. This is especially important when we search for distant planets that may still be in that earlier stage of evolution.

In LiveScience.com, Ker Than quotes reseacher Neil Reid as saying, “We should make sure we don’t lock into ideas that are entirely centered on what we see on Earth.”
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The suicide of a friend of family member is always a great tragedy. Scientists now think that there might be a “suicide gene” that is handed down in our DNA. Despite this, there is one sure way to help prevent suicides: keep guns out of the house.

A new study has found evidence that a genetic tendency toward suicide has been linked to a particular area of the genome on chromosome 2 that has been implicated in two additional recent studies of attempted suicide. Psychiatrist Virginia Willour says, “We’re hoping our findings will eventually lead to tests that can identify those at high risk for attempting suicide.”
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We may be entering the largest solar cycle ever recorded. While the sun is not responsible for global warming?human emissions are behind that?sunspots CAN make things worse?just when we thought we might be getting a reprieve.

In BBC News, Dr. David Whitehouse reports on a drilling of ice cores in Greenland that reveals that the sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the last 1,000 years. While we can now view sunspots with satellite technology, humans have been looking at them through telescopes for almost 400 years. Between 1645 and 1715, sunspot activity was greatly reduced and this brought on what has come to be known as the “little ice age” in Europe.
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