Infant :: Choline reduces behavioral effects of prenatal alcohol exposure

Giving choline to infants who were exposed in the womb to alcohol may mitigate some of the resulting problems. Prenatal alcohol exposure affects physical and central nervous system development, putting children at risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders that at their worst include full-blown fetal alcohol syndrome.

Metamaterials four to work for visible light

For the first time ever, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have developed a material with a negative refractive index for visible light. Ames Laboratory senior physicist Costas Soukoulis, working with colleagues in Karlsruhe, Germany, designed a silver-based, mesh-like material that marks the latest advance in the rapidly evolving field of metamaterials, materials that could lead to a wide range of new applications as varied as ultrahigh-resolution imaging systems and cloaking devices.