Informed consent is tricky business because there are disagreements about what informed consent can mean outside the country of the company conducting the trial and people will grant a lot of consent if they believe a treatment can help them, which can lead to exploitation.

One item that is not a topic of heavy debate is financial interest disclosures.  Everyone seems to agree they are important but there are no comprehensive guidelines governing it.

Circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles in various biological processes like core body temperature, melatonin synthesis and sleep–wake behavior.   They are synchronized most strongly by the light–dark cycle in the environment.

Bright light is known to increase alertness at night, but it has never been completely clear whether this light-induced alertness can arise from neural pathways other than those involved in the circadian system.

Research described in the BMC Neuroscience (open access!) says the circadian system is not the only pathway involved in determining alertness at night. showed that red light, which does not stimulate the circadian system, is just as effective at increasing night-time alertness as blue light, which does.

Obesity has increased dramatically in the last two decades, yet so have awareness campaigns saying appearance does not matter.    The cultural miasma is hardest on its youngest members and even kids aged 10 and 11 are concerned about their image, according to new research.  

A study of 4254 Canadian schoolchildren has shown a direct association between Body Mass Index (BMI) and satisfaction with their body shape. The research in BMC Public Health, says girls are happiest when thinnest but boys have it even worse - they are unhappy when they are too skinny or too fat.

Researchers from NIST and the University of Maryland have found what they say is a simple method of sandwiching organic molecules between silicon and metal, two materials fundamental to electronic components - perhaps overcoming one of the principal obstacles in creating switches made from individual molecules, the ultimate in miniaturization for the electronics industry.

Worried that your cold revenge plans won't come to fruition before you shake off that mortal coil?  A new Web site, www.DeathRiskRankings.com, developed by researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University, says they can help you plan your schedule accordingly.

The tool allows users to query publicly available data from the United States and Europe, and compare mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region. The Web site not only gives the risk of dying within the next year, but it also ranks the probable causes and allows for quick side-by-side comparison between groups.

Birds have a wide variety of vibrant plumages and have evolved various chemical and physical mechanisms to produce these beautiful colors over millions of years.  When did feathers first get iridescence, the quality of changing color depending on the angle of observation, such as the rainbow of colors seen in an oil slick?  We may be closer to an answer.   

A team of paleontologists and ornithologists has pushed the date back and discovered evidence of vivid iridescent colors in feather fossils more than 40 million years old.  It's the first evidence of a preserved color-producing nanostructure in a fossilized feather, according to their article in Biology Letters.