Overexpressing a protein involved in the uptake of fat in muscle of mice can improve their tolerance to cold temperatures, researchers find in a new study that showcases the over-looked role muscle may play in the cold response.

When temperatures drop, mammals respond by generating heat (thermogenesis), through mechanisms like shivering and breaking down ‘brown fat’ (high energy fat cells that are especially prominent in newborns and hibernating animals).

Considering that muscle accounts for over one-third of body mass and muscle activity regulates fat metabolism, Dalan Jensen and colleagues found that increasing the muscle’s ability to use fat for energy had a profound impact on its contribution to thermogenesis.

A study of male attitudes to health and how they use health services challenges the usual stereotype that men are uninterested in their health. The results will surprise those people who envisage the Australian pub-going male as brusque and disinterested in all things medical.

Rather than procrastinating, men may delay going to the doctor so that they can watch a health problem to see if it will fix itself. Indeed, a picture emerges of men as personal health detectives, monitoring rather than ignoring symptoms, and visiting the doctor only if a problem fails to resolve itself.

Regeneration, the replacement of damaged or lost body parts, is a shared trait among some animal species – as any youngster who has cut an earthworm in half can attest to. But the repair of damaged tissue and organs in higher animals is also one of the primary goals of current stem cell research.

The common aquarium pet, zebrafish, is an excellent genetic model system, capable of regenerating its spinal cord, retina, heart and fins. A group of researchers writing in Genes & Development focused on fin regeneration, as it entails the coordination of a large number of different cells types to recreate the functional organ.

Their study reveals that microRNA depletion is a necessary step in tissue regeneration – a discovery with interesting implications for their use in regenerative medicine.

Bile acid derivatives can turn on the vitamin D receptor (VDR) without causing excess calcium buildup, researchers report, a finding that could lead to vitamin D therapies for conditions beyond just bone and skin disorders.

While calcium balance may be the most well-known role of vitamin D, this molecule –through VDR binding– regulates many functions including immunity and cell growth and thus has diverse therapeutic potential. However, while vitamin D-based drugs are effective against some cancers and microbial infections, the risk of excess blood calcium has limited their clinical use.

Recently, mathematician Daniel J. Madden and retired physicist Lee W. Jacobi found solutions to a puzzle that has been around for centuries - an infinite number of solutions for a puzzle known as 'Euler’s Equation of degree four.'

The equation is part of a branch of mathematics called number theory. Number theory deals with the properties of numbers and the way they relate to each other. It is filled with problems that can be likened to numerical puzzles.

“It’s like a puzzle: can you find four fourth powers that add up to another fourth power" Trying to answer that question is difficult because it is highly unlikely that someone would sit down and accidentally stumble upon something like that,” said Madden, an associate professor of mathematics at The University of Arizona in Tucson.

There are a number of interconnected factors that lead to the success or failure of any business so it is usually considered an impossible task to predict whether a company will sink or swim numerically but researchers in Taiwan using the principles of evolutionary biology say they have devised an approach to spotting when a company is likely to fail.

Ping-Chen Lin of the National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences in Kaohsiung and Jiah-Shing Chen of the National Central University, Jhongli, in Taiwan, also explain how their metric of the financial status of any company can be of interest not only to its owners and employees but to a range of creditors, stockholders, banks, and individual investors.