Tomorrow I will be eating and science will barely be on my mind.

It will be on some minds. Some people will be trying to find a creative way to make vegan turkey, or free-range stuffing, and generally avoid all chemicals. Good luck with that.

Thanksgiving is Hell for chemophobes, though so are the other 364 days when they get hit with the scientific mic-drop notion that every food on earth contains a carcinogen known to cause cancer in rats. 

Labels won't save you, it's all stuffed with chemicals, we just don't get told about them on labels if a chicken craps them out:

The van der Waals force, named after Dutch chemist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, is the total forces between molecules not due due to covalent bonds. The famous sticking power of the geckos is thanks to the van der Waals force. 

Although it was discovered in the 19th century, it is still difficult to quantify when predicting the behavior of solids, liquids, and molecules because precise measurements were only possible for single atoms. That won't do for understanding biomolecules and proteins. They are also responsible for the functioning of certain adhesives and are the reason why geckos can adhere so amazingly well to surfaces, even allowing them to climb smooth walls. 

Roof-top solar panels are just one part of the micropower revolution. Presidency Maldives, CC BY-NC

By Morgan Saletta, University of Melbourne

There is no shortage of shouting and dire warnings about the state of the climate and our need to phase out fossil fuels. But there is a more silent revolution happening too — in micropower.

In metals like copper and aluminium, conduction electrons move around freely, in the same way as particles in a gas or a liquid.

But when impurities are introduced into the metal's crystal lattice, electrons cluster together in a uniform pattern around the point of interference, resembling the ripples that occur when a stone is thrown into a pool of water. Scientists have now discovered how to strengthen these Friedel oscillations and focus them, almost like using a lens, in different directions.

They've discovered (Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6558) that at a range of 50 nanometers, these "giant anisotropic charge density oscillations" are many times greater than normal.

In a famous mathematical thought experiment, the goal is to make randomness deterministic by closed-form equation, so mathematicians tried to determine the path of a 'drunken sailor' staggering around a town. 

If there are street lamps, he will run into them, change his direction and keep moving until he gets out of the city. Logically, the time he spends in the area depends on the number of street lamps but the surprising answer is that the number of streetlamps are not the big factor.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, at least if war is a necessity. And perhaps it is.

In the early days of humanity, survival was a combination of hardiness, keen engineering and intelligence - and nothing spurred on technological progress and vast social changes like the need to work together to kill other people, according to a new paper in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

It's not in the bones, but it might not be in the brain either. X-ray image by Shutterstock

By Andreas Goebel, University of Liverpool

For a short window, it appeared that bees were dying off. Environmentalist were quick to blame a new kind of pesticide, Neonicotinoids, known in short form as neonics, but then it turned out that the die-offs were in just one geographical area, which would not be the case if it were due to a pesticide.

Instead, it was likely a combination of environmental changes and perhaps a different sort of pest may try to kill them in the future; the exotic parasite Nosema ceranae and its original native relative Nosema apis. The exotic honey bee parasite may become more common not only due to its superior competitive ability, but also because of climate, according to a new study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

If you don't put a piece of tape over your webcam, get used to being watched. adafruit, CC BY-NC-SA

By Gordon Fletcher, University of Salford