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Social scientists are turning to online retail giant Amazon.com to cheaply recruit people around the world for research studies Social scientists nowadays are ordering research subjects through Amazon.com. The company runs an online marketplace called Mechanical Turk for people across the world available to do work on computers. (The name is a reference to an 18th century chess-playing \"machine\" that actually worked by virtue of a man hidden inside.) For tiny sums, anyone can hire people to perform almost any kind of simple task, such as tagging items in images. It's predicted that many more social science papers using MTurk will appear in the coming years.

Interest in a novel material with amazing properties continues to sweep through physics and chemistry labs worldwide. Will graphene's promise pay off? Interest in graphene, a novel material with amazing properties, continues to sweep through physics and chemistry labs worldwide. Graphene's carbon atoms are arranged in a chicken-wire pattern of hexagons, giving graphene a perfect crystalline order that makes it the strongest material ever made when yanked along the sheets, yet it flexes like plastic wrap. It's also an outstanding heat conductor. Electrons whiz through the sheets at rates far beyond those achieved in other materials. All these properties have made graphene a playground for researchers including theoretical and high-energy physicists, chemists, and computer-chip-device makers looking to lend graphene's exceptional properties to tomorrow's ultrasmall gadgetry.

Results from the decade-long Census of Marine Life are pouring in, providing insights into what lives where in the world's oceans. For the past 10 years, scientists from 80 nations have been creating the Census of Marine Life. They have now analyzed more than 6.5 million entries from the census databases, as well as other data for 11,500 marine species, to create a map of diversity hot spots. Corals and coastal fishes are most diverse in Southeast Asia, the team reported online 28 July in Nature . Another analysis, drawn from field surveys and literature reviews by 360 scientists, appears in a series in the 2 August PLoS ONE . It looks at species diversity in 25 regions of the world and comes up with a global average of what types of species populate the oceans. The proportions of species that inhabit particular waters change according to location.

Platelets are known for thwarting blood loss, but new research shows these simplified cells defend against microbes and perform other duties—and they're also drug targets in sepsis and other conditions. Platelets not only save us from bleeding to death, but in recent years, platelets have also displayed powers no one imagined they had. They are healers that pour out growth factors and other soothing molecules that help damaged tissue rebuild. They are soldiers that spark the protective response known as inflammation, alert immune cells, and even attack microbial interlopers. They are long-haul truckers that pick up and deliver chemicals such as serotonin, which helps the liver regenerate after injury. They are even engineers, shaping the vascular system in newborns. Additional platelet functions continue to come to light, and biologists have just described a novel way that the body might make these multitalented cells—a finding that could one day ease the demand for donated blood.