Houston, TX, USA. Scientists at Rice University are reporting the development of a nanodragster that may speed the course toward development of a new generation of futuristic molecular machines.

The machines consist of molecular components that respond to input stimuli and perform mechanical-like output movements. There are two broad categories: synthetic and biological. A synthetic machine has been synthesized by chemists. The biological versions are complex structures found within cells, including proteins and chemicals. However, there is an emerging overlap between the two, depending on the their work assignment.

Cells contain the most complex molecular machines ever found and are far more complex than artificially constructed machines. The biological machines do all sorts of jobs, such as muscle contraction and moving cargo, but have projected uses extracting unwanted materials (such as tumors) and doing repairs.

Fairfax, VA, USA. The state of the science and engineering (S&E) enterprise in America is strong, yet its lead is slipping, according to data released at the White House by the National Science Board (NSB).

Prepared biennially and delivered to the President and Congress on even numbered years by Jan. 15 as statutorily mandated, Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) provides information on the scope, quality and vitality of America's science and engineering enterprise.

SEI 2010 sheds light on America's position in the global economy.

"The data begin to tell a worrisome story," said Kei Koizumi, assistant director for federal research and development (R&D)in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Calling SEI 2010 a "State of the Union on science, technology, engineering and mathematics," he noted that quot;U.S. dominance has eroded significantly."

Woods Hole, MA, USA. The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that triggered disastrous destruction and mounting death tolls in Haiti this week occurred in a highly complex tangle of tectonic faults near the intersection of the Caribbean and North American crustal plates, according to an earthquake expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) who has studied such faults in the region and throughout the world.

Jian Lin, a WHOI senior scientist in geology and geophysics, said that even though the quake was "large but not huge," there were three factors that made it particularly devastating.

First, it was centered just 10 miles southwest of the capital city, Port au Prince; second, the quake was shallow — only about 10-15 kilometers below the land's surface; third, and more importantly, many homes and buildings in the economically poor country were not built to withstand such a force and collapsed or crumbled.

All of these circumstances made the Jan. 12 earthquake a "worst-case scenario," Lin said. Preliminary estimates of the death toll ranged from thousands to hundreds of thousands. "It should be a wake-up call for the entire Caribbean," Lin said.

Washington, DC, USA. An expert panel has developed recommendations that include a call on federal agencies that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure free public access to the results of the research they fund. And, they should do it "as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal."

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable is comprised of librarians, library scientists, publishers, and academics. The U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology convened the group last in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Policymakers asked the group to examine the current state of scholarly publishing and seek consensus recommendations for expanding public access to scholarly journal articles. The various communities represented in the Roundtable have worked to develop recommendations that would improve public access without curtailing the ability of the scientific publishing industry to publish peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Durham, NC, USA. A growing number of scientists are merging methods and results from different disciplines to extract new meaning from old data, says a team of researchers.

As science becomes increasingly specialized and focused on new data, however, researchers who want to analyze previous findings may have a hard time getting funding and institutional support, the authors say.

In a commentary piece that appears in the journal Evolution, the authors argue for removing cultural and technological barriers to this process.

"By putting together pieces of prior research, it is possible to transform how you do science and open the doors to findings that previously were unattainable," said Brian Sidlauskas, a former postdoctoral researcher at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and lead author on the article. "But such an approach runs counter to the way science traditionally has been conducted, so pursuing synthetic science is somewhat risky."