Virtual reality (VR) equipment has tended to be cumbersome and expensive, all heavy headsets and awkward gloves.

Until recently it’s been beyond the reach of the home consumer, but with the appearance of Oculus Rift (since bought by Facebook), Microsoft’s HoloLens, and even DIY options such as Google Cardboard, it seems VR is coming to a living room near you soon.

People with depression or bipolar disorder often feel their thinking ability has gotten "fuzzy", or less sharp than before their symptoms began, and a new study published in BRAIN finds that the effect is real - and rooted in brain activity differences that show up on advanced brain scans. 

According to a new paper, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the impact of Saturday morning cartoons, in particular the popular 1980s cartoon series "The Transformers", and what it did to shape children's perceptions of what behaviors are associated with effective leadership.

"The Transformers" started in 1984 with a toy line of transforming factions of alien robots fighting a civil war that spread to Earth -- the "good" Autobots, seeking peace, and the "bad" Decepticons, vying for galactic domination. The franchise has grown to include animation, comic books, video games and films, grossing more than $1 billion, whereas their competitors at the time, the Go-Bots, have been left behind.

Ethanol fuel refineries could be releasing much larger amounts of some ozone-forming compounds into the atmosphere than previous estimates. 

Ethanol, a government mandated and subsidized renewable transportation fuel made from corn, now constitutes approximately 10 percent of the fuel used in gasoline vehicles in the U.S., according to the new study. The renewable fuel mandate was a successful environmental effort to increase the use of ethanol and other renewable fuels aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum imports, while encouraging development and expansion of the U.S. renewable fuels sector, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Researchers have succeeded in reconstructing the neuronal networks that interconnect the elementary units of sensory cortex, called cortical columns. A key challenge in neuroscience research is identifying organizational principles of how the brain integrates sensory information from its environment to generate behavior. One of the major determinants of these principles is the structural organization of the highly complex, interconnected networks of neurons in the brain.

To help, researchers constructed anatomically-realistic 3D models of such neuronal networks in the rodent brain. 

Mutations in two genes cause a fatal lung scarring disease known as familial pulmonary fibrosis and can cause excessive shortening of the ends of chromosomes, known as telomeres. Telomeres are repetitive sequences of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes from deteriorating. Think of them like the plastic ends of shoelaces, which protect shoelaces from fraying. 

As the realities of legalized marijuana take hold in four states and the District of Columbia, legislators and regulators could learn a lot from the successes (and failures) of the tobacco and alcohol industries in keeping their harmful products out of the hands of children and adolescents.

People with insomnia and other sleep problems also report increased sensitivity to pain, reports a new study.

The study included more than 10,400 adults from a large, ongoing Norwegian health study. Each subject underwent a standard test of pain sensitivity--the cold pressor test--in which subjects are asked to keep their hand submerged in a cold water bath.The effect on pain tolerance appears strongest in people who suffer from both insomnia and chronic pain, who may benefit from treatments targeting both conditions.  

America is the fattest developed country on earth and psychologists say that positive images and societal reinforcement make losing weight easier - obese people are more likely to have obese friends and family, the same way alcoholics and drug addicts do.

Yet such 'thinspiration' images are also considered body shaming of overweight people by some. The 'Objectification' hypothesis of cultural body standards goes both ways.The Social Cognitive hypothesis also proposes that people learn from modeled behaviors and that 'thinspiration' content may be particularly important because such pictures are likely to get more positive reinforcement than unflattering pictures.

Edamame - vegetable soybean - is not widely grown in the United States, but it is growing in popularity. Part of the reason only about 85 million acres of grain-type soybean were grown in the U.S. in 2014 is because Asia can do it cheaply and there has been little research on the cultivars that could be used here and how to grow the crop sustainably.

Edamame seeds contain all the essential amino acids, which is unique to a vegetable crop, it is high in dietary fiber and most of the fats in edamame are unsaturated. Often marketed as a healthy snack food, edamame requires minimal processing and preparation.