The origin of life remains a mystery with more questions than answers. How were molecules created? How did they assemble into large structures? 

Among the conundrums, the "homochirality" phenomenon upon which amino acids and sugars form is particularly fascinating.  

The single-handedness of biological molecules has fascinated scientists since Pasteur first separated the enantiomorphic crystals of a tartrate salt more than 150 years ago because the homochirality of biological molecules is a signature of life.

Would you want to know if you or your children had risk of hereditary cancer, a genetic risk for cardiovascular disease or carried the gene associated with developing Alzheimer's disease - even if they were risks that wouldn't be relevant for possibly decades or didn't have a cure?

 Researchers used data from a cross-sectional online survey of a nationally-representative sample of the U.S. population that was conducted as part of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health and found that 80 percent showed the same interest in genome sequencing for themselves as they did for their kids and 59 percent wanted to know if they had disease risks.
 

Academics have written a lot of articles claiming their competitors in the private sector selectively publish trials that favor their own interests don't care as much about transparency as academia, but is that really true? 

When it comes to investigational drugs, devices and biologic therapies, the data is available and it shows that industry was actually 3X more likely to comply with legal requirements than academic studies after disclosure was mandated. 

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University's Brain Mechanisms for Behaviour Unit have found a surprise upon mapping the precise connectivity inside a brain structure called the neostriatum. The cell groups here do not seem to be talking to each other, and are less interdependent in their functioning than previously suspected. Their findings were published in Brain Structure and Function.

Once upon a time it was believed that greedy insurance companies were bad for patients - now they are a sign of the have's and have nots. A new analysis in Neurosurgery finds that brain tumor patients with private insurance have fewer medical complications and thus are in the hospital less than those who are on Medicaid or were uninsured between 2002 and 2011.

People have highly variable views on how much overdetection is acceptable in cancer screening, finds a UK survey in The BMJ this week. The authors say invitations for screening "should include clear information on the likelihood and consequences of overdetection to allow people to make an informed choice."

This article is part of a series on overdetection (overdiagnosis) looking at the risks and harms to patients of expanding definitions of disease and increasing use of new diagnostic technologies.