Does yoga help with chronic back pain?  Yes it does, but so does stretching.  Either is better than handing people a book, according to the largest U.S. randomized controlled trial of yoga to date. 

In the trial, 228 adults in six cities in western Washington state were randomly assigned to 12 weekly 75-minute classes of either yoga or stretching exercises or a comprehensive self-care book called "The Back Pain Helpbook". Nine in 10 of them were primary-care patients at Group Health Cooperative and participants in the trial typically had moderate, but not severe, back pain and relatively good mental health. Most had been at least somewhat active before the trial started. 

Teens who drink more than five cans fizzy soft drinks per week - less than one per day - are significantly more likely to commit violence or carry weapons, suggests research in Injury Prevention, part of the British Medical Journals.  

Using a single-step process, researchers recently developed a technique to cause M13 phages to become building blocks for materials with a wide range of properties.

These benign viruses self-assembled into hierarchically organized thin-film structures, with complexity that ranged from simple ridges, to wavy, chiral strands, to truly sophisticated patterns of overlapping strings of material. Each film presented specific properties for bending light, and several films were capable of guiding the growth of cells into structures with precise physical orientations.

Just can't stand the thought of having another daughter, or even a first one?  People in Europe and the Middle East who can rationalize they want to "balance" their family or minimize the risk of certain genetic diseases have a new option: MicroSort preconception sex selection technology is now available in Cyprus at North Cyprus IVF Clinic - one of only three countries in the world where you can openly and legally get sperm sorting. 

Low power electronics and devices for active, modern lifestyles is getting edgy; the research is on for stuff that is wearable, epidermal, implantable - heck, even edible.

Smart skin, created by MC10, is an example of an 'epidermal electronic system. It contains micro-circuitry like transistors, sensors, transmitters and receivers that can get wrinkled, are bendable and stretchable, just like real skin, but retains damage-free function of all components.

A new photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion shows the planet has a temperature like a hot summer day in Arizona.