The Aurigid meteor shower peaked on September 1, originating from C/1911 N1 Kiess, or comet Kiess, a long-period comet that takes about 2000 years to orbit the Sun. It was discovered in 1935 by Carl Kiess.

As Earth passes through the dust comet Kiess left behind 2000 years ago, meteoroids, or shooting stars, rain upon Earth. They burn up in the atmosphere at very high velocities, about 67 km/s, creating the meteor shower.

The Aurigids get their name from the constellation Auriga, because if you look up in the sky, this is where the shooting stars seem to come from. The dust trail of comet Kiess will not be crossed again in this manner for 70 years.

The constellation of Auriga rising above the horizon.

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that a single gene might control whether or not individuals tend to pile on fat, a discovery that may point to new ways to fight obesity and diabetes.

“From worms to mammals, this gene controls fat formation,” said Dr. Jonathan Graff, associate professor of developmental biology and internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of a study appearing in the Sept. 5 issue of Cell Metabolism.

Amihai Mazar, Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, revealed that the first apiary (beehive colony) dating from the Biblical period has been found in excavations he directed this summer at Tel Rehov in Israel’s Beth Shean Valley. This is the earliest apiary to be revealed to date in an archaeological excavation anywhere in the ancient Near East, said Prof. Mazar. It dates from the 10th to early 9th centuries B.C.E.

Tel Rehov is believed to have been one of the most important cities of Israel during the Israelite monarchy. The beehives there were found in the center of a built-up area there that has been excavated since 1997 by Dr. Nava Panitz-Cohen of the Hebrew University. Three rows of beehives were found in the apiary, containing more than 30 hives.

Eminem should be reading up on his Elvis history if he wants to stay around. Famous musicians are more than twice as likely as the rest of the population to die an early death, and within a few years of becoming famous, reveals research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The findings are based on more than 1050 North American and European musicians and singers who shot to fame between 1956 and 1999.

Scientists at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh have discovered a unique population of adult stem cells derived from human muscle that could be used to treat muscle injuries and diseases such as heart attack and muscular dystrophy.

In a study using human muscle tissue, scientists in Children's Stem Cell Research Center - led by Johnny Huard, PhD, and Bruno Péault, PhD - isolated and characterized stem cells taken from blood vessels (known as myoendothelial cells) that are easily isolated using cell-sorting techniques, proliferate rapidly and can be differentiated in the laboratory into muscle, bone and cartilage cells.

Education is one of the rare industries with a powerful union, no incentive based pay and where generally the worst performers get more money yet is still regarded as not very good.

Improving education most would start with incentives for teachers, claims new findings by economics professors at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Vanderbilt University. They say that states and school districts in the United States begin developing programs that examine the effects of linking teacher pay to student achievement.

The study was a collaborative effort between Michael J. Podgursky, professor of economics at Mizzou’s College of Arts and Science, and Matthew G. Springer, research assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College.

American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, died on 12 Apr 1897. Cope is best remembered for his rivalry with O.C. Marsh, often referred to as the Great Bone Wars. These two antagonists shared a lot in common: a fierce sense of competition, unbounded arrogance and a deep driving force that led them to unbelievable lengths to outdo each other. Cope led many great expeditions into the American West and was prolific in the naming of dinosaur species. Cope was also an ichthyologist, an evolutionist, and a founder of the Neo-Lamarckian school of thought.

But enough of the boring stuff, here's a story that really reveals the character of good old EDC:

A team of scientists from around the globe has determined that a drastic change in the climate of tropical Africa may have significantly driven early human evolution.

Among the findings: A transition from a long period of time (about 135,000 to 75,000 years ago) that included several extreme droughts to a stable, wetter climate may have stimulated the expansion and migration of early human populations.

The researchers studied lake cores from Lake Malawi, at the southern end of East Africa’s Rift Valley, and found that the megadroughts were some of tropical Africa’s driest periods in the last million years or more.

It's unclear if vitamin C supplements reduce cancer risk. They may actually increase it.

Fat in the stomach may cause vitamin C to promote, rather than prevent, the formation of certain cancer causing chemicals, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Gut.

The researchers analysed the impact of both fat (lipid) and vitamin C (ascorbic acid) on nitrite chemistry in the upper (proximal) stomach, which is especially vulnerable to pre-cancerous changes and tumor growth.

Nitrites, which are present in human saliva, and in certain preserved foodstuffs, may be converted to cancer causing compounds called nitrosamines.

It's done - the independent sequence and assembly of the six billion base pairs from the genome of one person, Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), has been completed.

Two general versions of the human genome currently exist but those were a melding of DNA from various people. In the case of one version from Celera Genomics, it was a consensus assembly from five individuals, while a government-funded version was a haploid genome based on sequencing from a limited number of individuals.

It seems both versions greatly underestimated human genetic diversity.