Mutations within the gene FTO have been implicated as a genetic determinant of obesity risk in humans, but the mechanism for any link remains unknown.

A new paper says that the obesity-associated elements within FTO interact with IRX3, a distant gene on the genome that appears to be the functional obesity gene. The FTO gene itself appears to have only a peripheral effect on obesity. 

Vibrations in chemical bonds can be used to predict chemical reactions. That means chemists could design better catalysts to speed reactions that make medicines, industrial products and new materials.

Cell metabolism is a crucial biological function for all living organisms but understanding how life may have emerged is difficult. And learning some answers may make it possible to learn whether it is possible for life to have emerged in similar environments on other worlds. 

Researchers writing in Astrobiology
detail their new approach to simulating the energetic processes that may have led to the emergence of cell metabolism.

Dr. Terry Kee from the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds, one of the co-authors of the research paper, said, "What we are trying to do is to bridge the gap between the geological processes of the early Earth and the emergence of biological life on this planet."

While there's no genetic basis for anorexia nervosa, psychiatrists say there may be a chemical treatment - oxytocin, the 'love hormone'.  

Linguists have conducted what they call an evolutionary analysis to the relationship between North American and Central Siberian languages and say the results indicate that people moved out from the Bering Land Bridge, with some migrating back to central Asia and others into North America.

A 70 million year old fossil found in the Late Cretaceous sediments of Alaska reveals a new small tyrannosaur named Nanuqsaurus hoglundi.