An unknown physiologic mechanism of evolutionary biology has been the ability of mammals to manipulate the sex ratios of their offspring as part of a highly adaptive evolutionary strategy. A new paper analyzing 90 years of breeding records from the San Diego Zoo says that mammalian species can "choose" the sex of their offspring in order to beat the odds and produce extra grandchildren.

According to a survey, fewer Americans overall feeling the blues, with rates of depression in people over 50 on the decline.

Sunshine is out. If you aren't slathering yourself in SPF 150 chemicals to keep it off of you, you're going to get skin cancer and no one will feel bad.

It's not that simple. As we grow older our bones become more fragile and a team of researchers have shown that this bone-aging process can be significantly accelerated through deficiency of vitamin D - which we naturally get from sunshine.

Vitamin D deficiency is a widespread medical condition that has been linked to the health and fracture risk of human bone on the basis of low calcium intake and reduced bone density. Working at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light ALS , the international team demonstrated that vitamin D deficiency also reduces bone quality.  

Every cell in an organism's body has the same copy of DNA, though different cells do different things so some function as brain cells, while others form muscle tissue. How can the same DNA make different things happen? Science is a step closer to answers and maybe even to putting in a piece of the autism puzzle.

Scientists know that much of what a gene does and produces is regulated after it is turned on. A gene first produces an RNA molecule, to which tiny RNA binding proteins (RBPs) bind and control its fate. For example, some of these proteins cut out parts of the RNA molecule so that it makes a particular protein, while other RBPs help destroy the RNA before it even produces a protein. 

Wind power may be hard on endangered eagles but greater prairie chicken populations are still okay, say ecologists.

The work, led by Kansas State University professor of biology Brett Sandercock concluded that wind turbines have little effect on greater prairie chickens - and that female survival rates increased after wind turbines were installed. Yes, wind power led to great life expectancy for females, a combination which should make this study worthy of the New York Times.

In the 2012 presidential election, seven out of 10 Latino immigrants voted for President Obama. News pundits declared the Latino vote as unattainable for the Republican Party.

Madagascar represents only one percent of the earth's area but is home to about three percent of all animal and plant species on the planet - it has long been known as a hotspot of biodiversity.

New research in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests the island's heyday of species development may be all but over. 

Sir Archibald Henry Bodkin, KCB (1862–1957) was our British Director of Public Prosecutions from 1920 to 1930.  He particularly took a stand against the publication of what he saw as ‘obscene’ literature.

The basics of how a muscle generates power are this: Filaments of myosin tugging on filaments of actin shorten, or contract, the muscle. Since the 1950s physiologists have had a formula – the length-tension curve – that accurately describes the force a muscle exerts at all points from fully outstretched, when every weight lifter knows there is little strength, to the middle points that display the greatest force, to the completely shortened muscle when, again, strength is minimized.

The assumption for 50 years has been that the power comes primarily from what's happening straight up and down the length of the muscle.

I love the movies.  I love science.  I spent many formative years watching Joe Bob Briggs, Commander USA, the goofballs at Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and similar people who introduced and commented on the movies they were showing.

Consequently, I now can't watch a movie without making similar ratings comments as I watch the good, the bad, and the ugly of science in the movies.