According to a new report from the National Institute of Medicine, U.S. Air Force reservists who (a decade after the Vietnam War) worked in C-123 aircraft that had sprayed Agent Orange during the war, were exposed to dangerous levels of the herbicide. Even as recently as 2009, samples taken from the aircraft showed the presence of Agent Orange residues in or above the cautionary range.

Agent Orange contained "minute traces" of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), more commonly known as dioxin. Through studies done on laboratory animals, dioxin has been shown to be highly toxic even in minute doses; human exposure to the chemical could be associated with serious health issues such as muscular dysfunction, inflammation, birth defects, nervous system disorders and even the development of various cancers. Returning Vietnam veterans and their families reported a range of afflictions, including rashes and other skin irritations, miscarriages, psychological symptoms, Type-2 diabetes, birth defects in children and cancers such as Hodgkin's disease, prostate cancer and leukemia.

The Agent Orange Act of 1991 provides health care and disability coverage for health conditions that have been deemed presumptively service-related and due to herbicide exposure during the Vietnam War. The 1,500 to 2,100 U.S. Air Force Reserve personnel who worked aboard these C-123 aircraft are currently ineligible to receive benefits, as it has thus-far been restricted to "boots on the ground" servicemen.

It has long been a mystery why quick and agile birds cannot out-maneuver automobiles and jetliners. This results in the deaths of thousands of birds every year and can injure drivers or cause potentially catastrophic jet engine failures. It's been estimated that bird strikes cause $400 million of damage every year in the US and up to $1.2 billion damage to commercial aircraft globally.

To work out why the strikes happen, a team of scientists from the US Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center in Ohio, Indiana State University and Purdue University, also in Indiana, used virtual reality, to avoid injuring birds. Researchers found that birds start to fly away from a vehicle when it is 98 ft (30 meters) away, no matter its speed. Thus they left too late to escape vehicles traveling faster than 75 mph (120kph).

The scientists suggested that installing lights on aircraft could warn the birds to flee from a longer distance away, reducing avian deaths.

People want their mobile phones and tablets to last a week from a single charge. But sadly we're still no closer to that goal. At CES this week, StoreDot-an Israeli technology company, has demonstrated a battery that fits inside a Galaxy S3 and can charge from dead to full inside two minutes.

How does it work? Researchers discovered tiny naturally occurring crystals that were able to store a charge or emit light. The crystals - dubbed NanoDots - are two nanometers in diameter and contain short chains of amino acids called peptides. They cover 'cavities' over an electrode in a standard battery. This extends how much of the battery can be used to create a reaction, which leads to a charge. Through the addition of the NanoDots, the electrode becomes "multi-function" - at one end, the electrode stores electrical energy creating a capacitor, and at the other, lets it flow into the battery's lithium.

In layman's terms, StoreDot has created a 'buffer' that stores electrical current coming from the wall socket over a period of around thirty seconds, then letting it flow slowly into the lithium. Myersdorf says that eventually, the company plans to get rid of the lithium in the battery altogether. The battery life of the cell is just five hours, according to StoreDot, obviously way behind existing Li-Ion batteries. But this doesn't matter when the unit can be charged so quickly; you just give it a quick top up whenever it needs one and within seconds you'll have a full charge.

A recent report by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security reveals that hackers caused "massive" damage to an unnamed steel mill. They did so by manipulating and disrupting control systems to such a degree that a blast furnace could not be properly shut down. The report doesn't name the plant or indicate when the breach occurred.

This is only the second confirmed case in which a wholly digital attack caused physical destruction of equipment. The first case, of course, was Stuxnet, the sophisticated digital weapon the U.S. and Israel launched against control systems in Iran in 2008 to sabotage centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant. Industrial control systems have been found to be rife with vulnerabilities, though they manage critical systems in the electric grid, in water treatment plants and chemical facilities and even in hospitals and financial networks.

How do you get humans to Mars? Apparently in a giant mushroom.

NASA engineers believe a lightweight, inflatable heat shield is necessary to sufficiently slow a craft entering a Martian atmosphere, which is much thinner than Earth's. Filled with nitrogen and covered with a thermal blanket, once deployed for landing the spacecraft resembles a giant mushroom. New technology is needed because the type of spacecraft that would land humans on the red planet would be much larger than anything that has landed on the planet previously. NASA engineers have been working on the inflatable technology for about a decade, and believe it is close to being ready for operational use. A test of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere is scheduled for 2016

Back in 2007, NASA engineers gave an in-depth explanation of the non-obvious difficulties with landing heavy payloads on the surface of Mars. Rockets alone can't be used to land a large craft on Mars, as on the Moon, due to higher gravity. Parachutes also will not work sufficiently in Mars' thin atmosphere for the heavy spacecraft needed to deliver humans to the planet.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, in association with Boeing, tested the first aircraft to be powered by a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system, where an electric motor and petrol engine work together to drive the propeller. The demonstrator aircraft uses up to 30 per cent less fuel than a comparable plane with a petrol-only engine. The aircraft is also able to recharge its batteries in flight.

Though increasingly common in the automotive industry, the technology has never before been brought to the aerospace sector. During take-off and climb, when maximum power is required, the engine and motor work together to power the plane, but once cruising height is reached, the electric motor can be switched into generator mode to recharge the batteries or used in motor assist mode to minimise fuel consumption. The same principle at work in a hybrid car.

In August 2014, California became the first state to impose a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at large retail stores. In addition, there will be a 10 cent minimum charge for recycled paper bags, reusable plastic bags, and compostable bags at certain locations. The ban is widely supported by environmentalists, who say the bags contribute to litter and pollution. In California, there is particular concern that the bags, when swept out to sea, could harm ocean life.

The state-wide ban was meant take effect on July 1, 2015, but the measure has triggered a harsh reaction from plastic bag manufacturers, who say their product can be easily recycled. An effort to kill the ban on single-use plastic grocery bags advanced this week after bag makers spent several million dollars on a campaign to gather signatures for a proposed ballot initiative to overturn it. Mr. Daniels of Hilex Poly said the plastic bag has been unfairly scapegoated for a variety of environmental ills. Thin plastic bags are reused, he said: They are repurposed as lunch bags and trash can liners, and they come in handy for pet cleanup.

Dozens of cities and counties throughout the state have already implemented local bans. Abbi Waxman, a television writer in Los Angeles, said, "I have, I'm not kidding, about 40 reusable bags at home, because I feel so guilty when I come without them that I buy more each time." Ms. Moya, a telemarketer and a mother of two said she has begun stockpiling plastic bags at home because paper bags "are always breaking. It's stupid, and it makes it really hard for us," she said, as she waited in the rain for a taxi with her disintegrating paper bags.

The most important job inside any cell is making proteins, and they are all made using instructions from DNA. This process is practically gospel in the field of molecular biology, but new research identifies some exceptions. Some proteins, it turns out, can make other proteins.

This isn't a case of a protein going rogue. It seems to be part of the recycling process that occurs when there's a mistake in a protein being built. When an error is introduced, the ribosomes stall and call in a group of quality control proteins, including Rqc2. In observing this process, the researchers saw how Rqc2 links up with the transfer RNA and tells it to insert a random sequence of two amino acids into the chain (out of 20 total amino acids).

The researchers believe that Rqc2's seemingly aberrant behavior might be an integral part of keeping your body free of faulty proteins. It's possible that it is flagging the protein for destruction, or that the string of amino acids could be a test to see if the ribosome is working properly. People with disorders like Alzheimers and Huntingtons diseases have defective quality control processes for their proteins. Understanding the exact conditions where Rqc2 is triggered, and where it fails to trigger, are the next step in this research, and could be important for developing new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

The science world has been mostly fixated on Mars and comets, but some scientists at NASA are starting to talk about Venus -- suggesting a manned mission to our closest neighbor could be simpler and less expensive than a trip to Mars.

Venus is one of the least hospitable places in the solar system. Its close proximity to the sun makes its surface unimaginably hot -- 462 degrees celsius. And its lower atmosphere is a highly pressurized oven of noxious gases. A manned mission to Venus, however, wouldn't have to involve the planet's surface. Researchers say just a few miles higher up and Venus's atmosphere boasts conditions not unlike Earth's, with more a manageable temperature and pressure. A new study by researchers at the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate, part of the NASA Langley Research Center, suggests astronauts could circle Venus in a helium-inflated dirigible -- conducting science experiments as they orbit.

This mission calls for a 129-meter airship floating 50 kilometers above the surface, called the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC), which has a small habitat suspended below and solar panels on top for power. At that level, the atmospheric pressure is one atmosphere. The temperature up that high is only 75 degrees Celsius, which is perfectly manageable. Even at 50 kilometers up, Venus' atmosphere offers ample protection from radiation - it's about the same level you'd experience in Canada. Mars, on the other hand, would expose astronauts to 40 times more radiation than on Earth. Power would be no problem as Venus gets 40% more solar energy than Earth and 240 times more than Mars. Since there is a thick atmosphere, the airship could use that electrical power to spin propellers or turbines for propulsion.

T-Mobile, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier, won its bid to change rules for judging whether market leaders AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. charge smaller competitors too much to use their networks for roaming. The Federal Communications Commission in an order released today said it would grant a petition from T-Mobile, and would compare proposed roaming rates with other prices, during disputes.

As usual, Verizon claimed the rule change would "discourage investment". AT&T says T-Mobile "has other options, including building out its own broadband network", and said they will challenge the FCC's decision.

The average data roaming rate paid by T-Mobile in 2013 was 30/MB. With T-Mobile's $30 for 5 GByte per month plan, using your entire quota while roaming would actually cost the company about $1,500 in roaming fees. AT&T drives-up that price, charging 150 percent more than the average rate T-Mobile pays for data roaming elsewhere.