According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 33.8 percent of American adults are obese. placing them at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers.  That's a lot of fat, but not all fat is bad.

When we picture body fat, what we are thinking of is white fat but another type, brown fat, does more - it burns body fat.  It was once believed that brown fat disappeared after infancy but recent advances in imaging technology led to its rediscovery in adult humans

Women often gain weight as they age and a new study in Cell Metabolism says the sex hormone estrogen, and estrogen receptor-α (ERα) has an important yet under-appreciated role in those bigger waistlines. 

Musical cartoons can boost verbal intelligence?  We'll hiatus Science 2.0 and start watching "Phineas&Ferb" right now.

Researchers writing in Psychological Science say pre-schoolers improved their skill after only 20 days of classroom instruction using their interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.

A daily supplement to reduce diabetes?   Maybe.

Researchers writing in Cell Metabolism show they have have restored normal blood sugar metabolism in diabetic mice using, nicotinamide mononucleotide(NMN), a compound the body makes naturally and which plays a vital role in how cells use energy.

All cells in the body make NMN in a chain of reactions leading to production of NAD, a vital molecule that harvests energy from nutrients and puts it into a form cells can use. Among other things, NAD activates a protein called SIRT1 that has been shown to promote healthy metabolism throughout the body, from the pancreas to the liver to muscle and fat tissue.

We've all read about efforts to provide amputees with robotic limbs and we know that  deep brain stimulation can relieve a range of Parkinson and OCD symptoms - a Tel Aviv University researcher has combined those ideas and gone a step farther and successfully implanted a robotic cerebellum into the skull of a rodent with brain damage, restoring its capacity for movement.