Science Sunday: Wrap-up of recent advancements in science from EurekAlert!

Researchers link two more genes to sudden infant death syndrome:

Recent discoveries at Mayo Clinic added two more cardiac genes to the list of potential links to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), increasing the possibility that genetic defects of the heart may cause up to 15 percent of SIDS cases.

Researchers make vitamin E offshoot a potent cancer killer:

Researchers here have learned how a derivative of vitamin E causes the death of cancer cells. The researchers then used that knowledge to make the agent an even more potent cancer killer. The compound, called vitamin E succinate, or alpha tocopheryl succinate, is taken by some people as a nutritional supplement, mainly for its antioxidant properties.

Even a little cooling helps after cardiac arrest:

As many as 400,000 people in North America suffer sudden cardiac arrest each year. Only 30 percent have their hearts restarted. Once the heart is restarted, a significant factor for subsequent death is brain injury. Cooling the patient can minimize the damage. In a paper presented at the 2006 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Annual Meeting, May 18-21, in San Francisco, investigators from the University of Pittsburgh discussed how even slight cooling (2 .C) can help.

Codeine may be no cure for cough:

Scientists at the University of Manchester's North West Lung Centre have found that codeine - a standard ingredient in cough remedies - could be no more effective than an inactive placebo compound at treating cough.

Just one nanosecond: Clocking events at the nanoscale:

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has found a way to time material behavior at the nanometer scale, in essence clocking the movements of atoms as they are manipulated using electric fields.

New laser technique that strips hydrogen from silicon surfaces:

A team of researchers have achieved a long-sought scientific goal: using laser light to break specific molecular bonds. The process uses laser light, instead of heat, to strip hydrogen atoms from silicon surfaces, a key step in the manufacture of computer chips and solar cells.

Our memory wears rose-colored glasses:

After all is said and done, we remember the good and downplay the bad.

Plant protection from cold decoded:

In response to cold, plants trigger a cascade of genetic reactions that allow them to survive. University of California, Riverside Professor of Plant Cell Biology Jian-Kang Zhu has described how a little-known biochemical reaction regulates that genetic cascade.

A ruler to measure the universe:

Astronomers with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, including principal authors now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have published the largest three-dimensional map of the universe ever constructed, a wedge-shaped slice of the cosmos that encompasses 600,000 uniquely luminous red galaxies and extends 40 percent of the way back in time to the Big Bang. Large-scale structures repeating every 450 million light years confirm the accelerating expansion of the universe due to dark energy.