Around 3,000 farmers work 6,000 hectares in Veracruz, the west coast of Mexico, to grow potatoes (Solanum tuberosum). In recent decades, the fields of the Cofre de Perote area were affected by the presence of the golden nematode of potatoes (Globodera rostochiensis), also known as the yellow potato cyst nematode, a devastating plant pathogen, which reduced crop yields by more than 40 percent, leading to loss of income, loss of food and greater environmental strain due to making up the gap.

According to records of the Institute of Ecology (INECOL) in Mexico, there were 6,000 cysts per kilogram of soil of the nematode - European Organization for the Protection of Plants guidelines say anything over 40 cysts will affect crop yield.

Rheumatoid arthritis causes chronic pain and inflammation in joints, such as those in the hands and feet, as well as knees and hips. Over time, rheumatoid arthritis can destroy the cartilage that lubricates and cushions the joints. In essence, it 'remodels' bones, leading to disfigurement, pain and reduced mobility.

Cartilage was previously thought to be a victim of an overzealous immune system but a new paper finds it has an active role in rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr Tommy Liu, Professor Ian Wicks, Dr Kate Lawler, Dr Ben Croker and colleagues from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute made the discovery while investigating the role of the protein SOCS3 in controlling inflammation during rheumatoid arthritis. 

Given its rampant crime, corruption and money issues, a lot of residents of Illinois publicly wish they could give Chicago away. They almost never had it at all.

The original proposed northern boundary of Illinois was a straight line from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan to just south of the Rock and Mississippi River confluence - had it been approved,  the northern 51 miles of the Illinois Territory would have become Wisconsin when it became a state in 1848.

Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease with symptoms which include the formation of red inflamed lesions that appear on the skin, vary from mild to severe.

It affects around 125 million people worldwide. A new paper has found different types of dendritic cells in human skin have assorted functions in the early and more advanced stages of psoriasis. The scientists suggest that new strategies to regulate the composition of dendritic cells in psoriatic skin lesions might represent an approach for the future treatment of the disease.

The scientists observed an increase in the accumulation of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in the psoriatic lesions of patients as well as in mice that are model organisms for the study of the disease.

There is a link between our brain structure and our tolerance of risk, find economists who say they have found the first stable 'biomarker' for financial risk-attitudes.

Does that mean there is a causal link between brain structure and behavior? Neuroscientists and psychologists tend to fall into that trap but the scholars in the Journal of Neuroscience avoid that trap.

Dr Agnieszka Tymula, an economist at the University of Sydney, and colleagues found that the gray matter volume of a region in the right posterior parietal cortex was significantly predictive of individual risk attitudes. Men and women with higher gray matter volume in this region exhibited less risk aversion.

"Nobody understands the cloud," shouts a character in a recent comedy about a couple trying to remove a private video from the Internet. 

In reality, the cloud is completely understandable, and it's one of few areas in climate where the emissions costs are also. And because it is quantifiable it can benefit from combinatorial optimization. the famous rucksack problem where a traveler has to try and fit everything in without leaving anything behind.

Imagine being able to go from the hottest of hots to the coldest of colds, and endure both extreme droughts, where 97% of your body water is gone, and airless vacuums such as space.

The African midge,  Polypedilum vanderplanki, can do all that and an international team deciphered the genetic mechanism that makes it invulnerable to these harsh conditions.

The midge is capable of anhydrobiosis, a unique state that allows an organism to survive after losing almost all of its body water, along with other severe conditions, such as extreme temperatures ranging from 90°C to -270°C, vacuums and high doses of radiation; all of which would be lethal to most other life forms.

Keys at your fingertips, but the technology isn't there yet. Credit: Rachmaninoff, CC BY-SA

By Andrew Smith, The Open University

How can we ensure that someone is who they say they are? How can be sure that the person in our system, both digitally speaking or physically in front of us, is who whom they claim to be?

When you read something in a book, do you believe it?

You might say, “Of course not if it’s fiction,” but well-researched historical or science fiction can offer plenty of accurate information, entertainingly packaged. Nonfiction, on the other hand, might seem true by definition—but what about memoirs? Polemics? Even textbooks tend to be outdated at best, if not outright biased.

Recently a study was published in the Milbank Quarterly analyzing the voting patterns of FDA Advisory Committee members with apparent conflicts of interest.