A team of researchers can detect how taste is encoded in patterns of neural activity in the human brain.

That means they can basically read your mind when it comes to food.

Tastants in the mouth activate specific receptors on the tongue corresponding to each of the basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory (umami). The signal is then transduced further to the brain. How the peripheral signal is used by the central nervous system to encode taste quality is largely unknown.

An important food resource has been disappearing from streams without anyone noticing until now.

In a new study published March 6 in the journal Science, a team of researchers led by University of Georgia ecologists reports that nutrient pollution causes a significant loss of forest-derived carbon from stream ecosystems, reducing the ability of streams to support aquatic life.

The findings show that the in-stream residence time of carbon from leaves, twigs and other forest matter, which provide much of the energy that fuels stream food webs, is cut in half when moderate amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus are added to a stream.

We have tens or hundreds of active 'foreign' genes, according to a new paper, and that may merit a rethink of how we discuss evolution, say the authors.

The composition of intestinal bacteria and other micro-organisms--called the gut microbiota--changes over time in unhealthy ways in black men who are prediabetic, a new study finds. The results will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.

In parts of the country that do not have icebergs washing up on shore or falling from the sky, it is almost spring planting season. 

For tomatoes, that mean unless you use a toxic organic or synthetic chemical, there is a chance of bacterial infection, leading to stunted growth and less nutritional value. The discovery of new regulations of defense pathways for plants could lead to helping those home-grown tomatoes fight off certain bacteria better and even have implications for pear trees, roses, soybeans and rice.


Tomatoes infected with speck disease often have wilted leaves and damaged fruit. Credit: University of Missouri

A team of scientists have successfully transferred a receptor that recognizes bacteria from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a dicot, to wheat, a monocot.

The receptor can trigger a defensive response and confers increased resistance to bacterial disease. The research findings demonstrate that the signaling pathways or circuitry downstream of the receptor are conserved between evolutionary distant monocots and dicots.