The government enjoyed tremendous success steering the goals of science in World War II and that continued during the NASA era. Since that time, government has exercised greater control of science through larger and larger pools of funding that have gradually supplanted corporate basic research.

But government control of funding has its downside; fashions in research funding (solar power now, before that), reward structures in universities that focus on government grants and streamlining of scientific agendas undermine traditional scientific norms and may even result in science bubbles.

This week, Americans officially start focusing on Christmas holiday celebrations and that means a lot of high-calorie food.

If you have ever wondered about why you can tap a newly opened beer bottle and its suds will foam out and go all over the place, researchers from Carlos III University and Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Institut Jean le Rond d'Alembert have provided some insight - by exploring the phenomenon of cavitation. 

Cavitation, a phenomenon relevant to such common engineering concerns as erosion of ship propellers, is the mechanism by which bubbles appear in a liquid such as beer after an impact, said Javier Rodriguez-Rodriguez, the lead researcher from Carlos III University.

Though more and more women are given antidepressant medication while they are pregnant and there have been more diagnosed cases of autism, there is no connection between the use of antidepressant medication - SSRIs - during the course of pregnancy and the risk of having a child with autism.

Diabetics who received prescribed heart medications by mail were less likely to visit the emergency room than patients who picked up prescriptions in person, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study published in the American Journal of Managed Care which examined 17,217 adult Kaiser Permanente members with diabetes who were first prescribed heart medications in 2006 and followed them for 3 years.

This study is the first to examine the potential impacts of mail order pharmacy on patient safety and utilization, and explores the concern of patients experiencing adverse outcomes because they do not meet face-to-face with a pharmacist.

 C/2012 S1, Comet ISON, began in the Oort cloud, almost a light year away and has traveled for over a million years.

On Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 2013, Comet ISON will sling shot around the sun - but what happens next is a mystery. Either it will break up due to the intense heat and gravity of the sun or it will speed back away, destination unknown, but certainly never to return.