Heart disease is the leading cause of death in many parts of the world, including the U.S., England and Canada, so it's not surprising that bioengineers at Duke University are excited by what they believe could be an important first step toward growing a living “heart patch” to repair damaged heart tissue.

A third of the World's oceans must be closed to fishing if depleted stocks are to recover, scientists and conservation groups have warned. Such a measure could "set the clock back 200 years" and reverse the decline in fish populations, after which responsible fisheries management could regenerate the industry.

Bugs that skate on water can do it because their feet are "superhydrophobic." Chinese scientists applied a similar coating to a tiny copper mesh boat, and suddenly it could hold three times the weight.

Computer scientists affiliated with the Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS), based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), in collaboration with scientists at the Universit Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, deployed the first practical, web-based implementation of a secure, verifiable voting system for the presidential election held at UCL earlier this week.