Between the ages of 40 and 80, an estimated 30 to 50 percent of muscle mass is lost, resulting in lower strength and less ability to carry out everyday tasks. This process is known as sarcopenia and it is common and clearly linked to frailty and poorer health in older people.

Cellular structures called microtubules are tagged with a variety of chemical markers that can influence cell functions and the pattern of these markers makes up the "tubulin code". One of the main writers of this code is tubulin tyrosine ligase-7 (TTLL7), according to a new paper. 

A number of recent studies have reported on the use of biomarkers, particularly blood-based ones, that offer the potential for screening diseases such as cancer and HIV.

A biomarker can be a gene, a gene mutation, protein, other molecule or clinical measurement that indicates a given disease state.

Biomarkers can be diagnostics (telling us of the presence of a given disease), prognostic (telling us of the outcome for a patient with a particular disease) and predictive (telling us of the response of an individual to a given therapy). The latter has led to the rise of so-called personalised or precision medicine.

Southern Indiana is an oasis free from Lyme disease, the condition most associated with the arachnids that are the second most common parasitic disease vector on Earth.

But there are signs that this low-risk environment is changing, both in Indiana and in other regions of the U.S, says Indiana University biology professor Keith Clay.  Lyme disease has been detected just a few hours north of the region around Tippecanoe River State Park and Lake Michigan's Indiana Dunes, and Clay said the signs are there that new tick species, and possibly the pathogens they carry, are entering the area. 

So, you think you know what a planet looks like? A sphere, perhaps flattened at the poles? But if you've been following recent discoveries of dwarf planets, you may know that rapidly spinning dwarf planets like Haumea typically are rugby ball shaped (triaxial spheroids), rather surprisingly perhaps. So, what other shapes can a planet have? Theory, and experiment with droplets in simulated zero g suggest several exotic possibilities.

“Birds of a feather flock together” is a saying that exists in a number of different languages. “Gambá cheira gambá” (opossums smell other opossums) in Brazilian Portuguese is a particularly colorful example.

The reason is that like-minded people like to hang out together across many cultures. And it seems the same is true of baboons.

What do you have when someone declares that organic food should be separate from USDA oversight but organic soap should have special oversight if it is not made by a large corporation?

A California politician.

In an experiment, rats who saw another rat drowning extended a helping paw to rescue it, and the behavior was even more pronounced in rats that previously had a watery near-death experience. 

This prosocial behavior, even if it does not gain any advantage from it, was also noted when rats helped members of their own species to escape from a tubelike cage. For a new study, the team conducted three sets of experiments involving a pool of water. One rat was made to swim for its life in the pool, with another being in a cage adjacent to it. The soaked rat could only gain access to a dry and safe area in the cage if its cagemate opened a door for it.

Does anyone actually buy the clothes that show up on runways a few times per year? People do, and the thinking goes that in order to sell them, models need to look thin. Some cultural advocates have insisted that overweight women who look more 'real' - 65 percent of Americans are overweight - will sell more clothes, but that is in defiance of marketing principles which have shown that people buy on what they want to look like, not what they do look like.

The use of novel psychoactive substances, synthetic compounds with stimulant or hallucinogenic effects, is on the rise and the diversity and breadth of these substances - a change in one atom means an illegal drug is no longer illegal - has led policymakers, law enforcement officers, and healthcare providers to feel overwhelmed. 

A recent review has led to proposing a "forecasting method" for policymakers and researchers to focus on what is likely to happen with new recreational drugs. Dr. John Stogner of UNC Charlotte says a five step forecasting method will rely on the availability of a potential user base, the costs of the drug (legal and otherwise), the subjective experience, the substance’s dependence potential, and the overall ease of acquisition.