Move over, compact discs, DVDs, and hard drives. Researchers in Japan report progress toward developing a new protein-based memory device that could provide an alternative to conventional magnetic and optical storage systems, which are quickly approaching their memory storage capacities. Their study is scheduled for the March 4 issue Langmuir.

Just as nature chose proteins as the memory storage medium of the brain, scientists have spent years exploring the possibility of similarly using proteins and other biological materials to build memory-based devices with the potential for processing information faster and providing greater storage capacity than existing materials. Although a few protein-based memory materials have shown promise in experimental studies, developing such materials for practical use remains a challenge.

Physical attractiveness is important in choosing whom to date. Good looking people are not only popular targets for romantic pursuits, they themselves also tend to flock together with more attractive others. Does this mean then that more attractive versus less attractive people wear a different pair of lens when evaluating others’ attractiveness?

Columbia University marketing professor, Leonard Lee, and colleagues, George Loewenstein (Carnegie Mellon University), Dan Ariely (MIT) and James Hong and Jim Young (HOTorNOT.com), decided to test this theory in the realm of an online dating site. The site HOTorNOT.com allows members to rate others on their level of physical attractiveness.

A University of Alberta study recommends that workers on pig farms be monitored as part of influenza pandemic preparedness, after a child on a communal farm in Canada was diagnosed with swine flu in 2006.

Though the seven-month-old boy made a full recovery, health researchers were concerned because of evidence that the virus spread to other members of the multi-family community, who, fortunately, all demonstrated mild or no apparent illness. It has been known for a long time that avian and swine strains of flu can spread to humans, with avian strains appearing to be more dangerous than swine strains; as of late 2007, the avian flu had killed 194 people in 321 cases reported worldwide.

If you live in Pennsylvania, it's West Virginia. If you live in California, it's every 'red state' in the Union. No matter where you live, some nearby state is the butt of inbreeding jokes.

Well, those places you make fun of for having an evolutionary tree that's a straight line are also having the last laugh, it seems.

In a new paper, deCODE scientists establish 'a substantial and consistent positive correlation between the kinship of couples and the number of children and grandchildren they have.'

Counterintuitive? Sure, from an evolutionary perspective closely-related parents have a higher probability of having offspring homozygous for deleterious recessive mutations, but closer parental kinship can also decrease the likelihood of immunological incompatibility between mother and offspring, for example in rhesus factor blood type.

If you just got done reading our previous article, Digestive Reflex May Mean Artificial Sweeteners End Up Causing Weight Gain, it may seem confusing that we now have an article saying artificial sweeteners help with weight loss. Welcome to the world of neuroscience. We just report the data.

In this case, a recent review of scientific literature concluded that low-calorie (or no-calorie) sweeteners may be of help in resolving the obesity problem. Although they are not magic bullets, low-calorie sweeteners in beverages and foods can help people reduce their calorie (energy) intakes.

“Low-calorie sweeteners reduce the energy of most beverages to zero and lower the energy density of many foods,” said study co-author, Dr. Adam Drewnowski, Director, Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington. “Every dietary guideline these days tells us to bulk up, hydrate, and consume foods with fewer calories but more volume.”

If you want to lose weight, diet soft drinks are not the answer, according to findings in the February issue of Behavioral Neuroscience.

Psychologists at Purdue University’s Ingestive Behavior Research Center say the widespread use of no-calorie sweeteners may actually make it harder for people to control their intake and body weight.

The researchers reported that, relative to rats that ate yogurt sweetened with glucose (a simple sugar with 15 calories/teaspoon, the same as table sugar), rats given yogurt sweetened with zero-calorie saccharin later consumed more calories, gained more weight, put on more body fat, and didn’t make up for it by cutting back later, all at levels of statistical significance.