Scientists have discovered that neurons use minor "DNA surgeries" to toggle their activity levels all day, every day, and since these activity levels are important in learning, memory and brain disorders, it could shed light on a range of important questions. 

"We used to think that once a cell reaches full maturation, its DNA is totally stable, including the molecular tags attached to it to control its genes and maintain the cell's identity," says Hongjun Song, Ph.D., a professor of neurology and neuroscience in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute for Cell Engineering. "This research shows that some cells actually alter their DNA all the time, just to perform everyday functions."

Bees play an invaluable role in maintaining biodiversity and in pollinating the crops that feed the world, so it is essential to improve our understanding of their biology and to investigate how they respond to environmental threats. Despite their often slow and apparently bumbling flights from flower to flower, bumblebees are anything but lazy. With over 250 bumblebee species globally, these important insects perform the laborious task of pollinating flowers in both wild and agricultural settings. A large number of fruits and vegetables would be missing from our plates had a bumblebee not done its job. 

Researchers gave bumblebees the option to choose between a sugar solution with nicotine in it and one without and found that bees infected with the Crithidia bombi parasite were more likely to go for the nicotine-laced nectar than those that weren't infected.

Happy Meals for broccoli?

A paper presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego says that because poor food choices in school cafeterias are a risk factor for childhood obesity, students will make better choices if healthy foods are labeled with smiley faces and have prizes - similar to what fast food corporations do to try and make lunch more fun.

Centrioles - barrel-shaped structures inside cells- are made up of multiple proteins and since mutations in the proteins that make them up can cause a broad range of diseases, including developmental abnormalities, respiratory conditions, male sterility and cancer, they are the focus of a great deal of research

There may be more a natural way to reduce the use of pesticides but still save plants from attack -  by recreating a natural insect repellent based on smell.

Scientists from Cardiff University and Rothamsted Research have created tiny molecules which mirror a natural occurring smell known to repel insects by providing the enzyme ((S)-germacrene D synthase), which creates the smell, with alternative substrate molecules. 

The effectiveness of the smell or perfume to function as an insect repellent was tested and the team found that the smells repelled insects but in one case a reversal of behavior - an attractant - was observed which raises the prospect of being able to develop a trap-and-kill device.