You’re more likely to give things a favorable evaluation when you’re happy and a negative evaluation when you’re sad. But how does mood influence your choices among items?

A new study in the February issue of the Journal of Consumer Research people finds that consumers in a good mood are more likely than unhappy consumers to choose the first item they see, especially if all the choices are more or less the same.

“It is surprising that little research has been done to examine how affect influences comparisons and choices,” say Cheng Qiu (University of Hong Kong) and Catherine W. M. Yeung (National University of Singapore).

We've been waiting for a good personal jet pack system since seeing Sean Connery strap on that Bell-Textron thing in the opening sequence of Thunderball.

Thunderbolt Aerosystems founder Carmelo "Nino" Amarena must have seen that movie too because when he decided to try and shorten the grueling commute to his Bay Area office, he came up with what he says is a practical and economical personal air vehicle - one that won't blow up on your back like those hydrogen peroxide-powered prototypes of the early 1960s.

Don't get too excited just yet if you're a big guy. While the new version can stay aloft for up to 75 seconds, a 300% increase over what other systems offer, and go 65 MPH, it's limited to a 160 lb. man and a laptop. See it in action here:

The new Center for Vaccine Awareness and Research at Texas Children’s Hospital announced that it will implement the nation’s first major “cocoon strategy” vaccination program to protect newborn infants from the life-threatening infection pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough.

In the most recent edition of the Lancet, Cambridge scientists Drs. Oliver Jones and Julian Griffin highlight the need to research the possible link between persistent organic pollutants (POPs, a group which includes many pesticides) and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes.

In their commentary, Dr Jones and Dr. Griffin cite peer reviewed research, including that of Dr. D. Lee, et al, which demonstrated a very strong relationship between the levels of POPs in blood, particularly organochlorine compounds, and the risk of type 2 diabetes.

The use of a drug to activate stem cells that differentiate into bone appears to cause regeneration of bone tissue and be may be a potential treatment strategy for osteoporosis, according to a report in the February 2008 Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The study – led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) – found that treatment with a medication used to treat bone marrow cancer improved bone density in a mouse model of osteoporosis, apparently through its effect on the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) that differentiate into several types of tissues.

Dr. Shaohua Xu, Florida Tech associate professor of biological sciences, has an original theory of the origin of Alzheimer’s Disease and has earned a $150,000 grant from Space Florida to test it. The grant was matched with $30,000 from NASA’s Aerospace Medicine and Occupational Health Branch.

He is also the sole medical researcher at the State of Florida’s Space Life Sciences Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and the research is being conducted both at the university and KSC.

Xu’s theory, both controversial and praised, involves the start of the disease when molecules of a normal brain cell protein called “tau” do something very abnormal: they join together to form tangled fibers that the cell cannot remove.