Ripped From the Journals: The Biggest Discoveries of the Week

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 28 A paper describing how a chemical compound closely related to a common blue food dye could help repair spinal injuries got a hefty dose of attention this week, garnering extravagant headlines like "Can Blue M&Ms cure paralysis?" Despite the oversimplified hype, the findings are exciting: spinal-damaged rats that were given the drug recovered the ability to limp about, with only one side effect--a slight blueish hue. Another report published online established DNA "barcode" system for plants: two sections of DNA that will serve as a unique identifier for every species. Botanists have been squabbling over which genetic sequences to use for years; now that they've settled the matter they can begin to build a genetic library that will allow for quick plant identification across the world.