Researchers are working to select autochthonous bacteria with biofertilizing potential as a result of the stimulating effect they have on the take-up of nutrients by plants, phytohormone production and phytopathogen control.

Both organic and synthetic fertilizers are expensive and not very sustainable from an environmental power of view so researchers from Neiker-Tecnalia, the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, in Spain, believe farmers would embrace bacteria-based biofertilizers.

Psychologists recently carried out hundreds of mock police lineups to determine the most successful procedure for identification of criminals. Inaccurate identification can obviously lead to the prosecution of innocent people while guilty ones go free.

It is difficult for pharmaceutical companies to have good public relations in an immediate news and social media world - no matter how many trials are done, people can still have adverse effects or even suffer real harm - and social media detractors can just claim they are corrupt and convince a large segment of their followers. 

To make sure the public has as much confidence as possible in new products, all drugs have to undergo exhaustive, time-consuming and expensive testing. When high-profile media events like ebola, which killed 1/13,000th as many Americans this week as heart disease did, happen, there are calls to throw ethics and testing protocols out the window.

PHILADELPHIA — Higher levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides, two types of fat, in the blood of men who underwent surgery for prostate cancer, were associated with increased risk for disease recurrence, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

By Ben Locwin, Genetic Literacy Project

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was just awarded to three neuroscientists for refining some past research and developing some pioneering new results to understand how our brains keep track of where we are spatially.

 

By Jon Entine, Genetic Literacy Project

New genetically modified corn and soybean traits, already approved by the US Department of Agriculture, is likely to gain Environmental Protection Agency next week, the Genetic Literacy Project has learned.

David Fincher's film shows the desolation of failed suburban promises. Credit: Twentieth Century Fox

By Julie McIntyre, University of Newcastle

Obesity is a significant risk factor for the development of a number of diseases, but the first that comes to mind is type 2 diabetes. 

A new study of human placenta has provided evidence that  flame retardant chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), implicated as being endocrine disrupting chemicals, and find they can interfere with thyroid hormone action in pregnant women.

The implication is that PCBs can infiltrate the placenta during pregnancy and affect thyroid hormone activity at the cellular level. PCBs were used in transformers and other electrical equipment, paints, adhesives and tape. Although the endocrine-disrupting chemicals were banned in the United States in 1979, PCBs still are released into the environment from disposal sites or products manufactured prior to the ban. Most people have only been exposed to low levels of PCBs.

Tomatoes contain antioxidants such as vitamin C, lycopene, β-carotene, and phenolics. Antioxidants are substances capable of delaying or inhibiting oxidation processes caused by free radicals and are of interest to both consumers and plant biologists. Consumers, for their health-related contributions, and plant breeders for their ability to provide plants with natural resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses.