A few years ago, the low-carb diet craze was in full force and it looked like sugar might never return to society's good graces.

Sugar substitutes are a billion-dollar business. According to a national survey conducted by the Calorie Control Council, a sugar-substitute industry group based in Atlanta, 80 percent of adults use low-calorie and sugar-free foods and beverages.

Yet you can't really count sugar out. For one thing, every diet program recommends sugar substitutes, which keeps the taste of sugar in the minds of its dieters, and though that doesn't make a lot of sense because it's like Alcoholics Anonymous telling its members to drink non-alcoholic beer, it means that people prefer it.

As I've recently commented, there has been media interest in the use of the virtual online world Second Life for chemistry. We also recently demonstrated on Drexel Island that it was possible to visualize molecular docking using the molecular rezzer developed by Andrew Lang. Nature Island also hosts several common molecules, including buckyballs.

First the obesity problem in humans alarmed physicians and then veterinarians worried about fat cags ( and dogs) but now a team of researchers in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine and Virginia Tech has determined that horses are also facing serious health risks because of obesity.

Fifty-one percent of the horses evaluated during the pioneering research were determined to be overweight or obese – and may be subject to serious health problems like laminitis and hyperinsulinemia. And just like people, it appears as though the culprits are over-eating and lack of exercise.

Unlike moths and butterflies that are often brilliantly colored to warn potential predators that they carry toxins, flowers and the fruits they produce have brilliant colors to attract the attention of pollinators and frugivores who will disperse their pollen and seed, thus guaranteeing the next generation.

The appearance of flowering plants on earth about 150 million years ago had a profound effect on the evolution of many other kinds of organisms like insects, birds, and mammals, who became the pollinators and consumers of those plants, thus ensuring the continuity of both the plant and its animal partner.

A study of more than 2,200 women at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia shows that African American women have more advanced breast cancer at the time of diagnosis than Caucasian women.

In addition, African American women tend to have breast cancer tumor types that are more aggressive and have poorer prognoses.

The disease that causes tremors, rigidity and slowed movements in a million Americans also targets another brain network that regulates cognitive thought and the ability to carry out everyday tasks.

David Eidelberg, MD, head of the Center for Neurosciences at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, and his colleagues measured and quantified this network of brain regions during a five-year study of newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients who agreed to be followed several times over the course of the study. This is the first longitudinal study of Parkinson’s disease using a brain scan to follow these Parkinson’s network over time.

While most RNAs work to create, package, and transfer proteins as determined by the cell’s immediate needs, miniature pieces of RNA, called microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression. Recently, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine determined how miRNAs team up with a regulatory protein to halt protein production.

Scientists estimate miRNAs have the ability to regulate the expression of approximately one third of human genes, and previous studies have linked abnormal activity of miRNAs to cancer and other diseases.

Most plants and animals show changes in activity over a 24-hour cycle. Now, for the first time, researchers have shown how a plant combines signals from its internal clock with those from the environment to show a daily rhythm of growth.

Using time-lapse photography, postdoctoral researcher Kazunari Nozue, with colleagues from UC Davis and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, found that the shoots of Arabidopsis seedlings show a spurt of growth once a day.

The timing of that growth spurt is controlled by both the plant's internal clock and by exposure to light, acting on two genes called PIF 4 and PIF 5.

Compounds found in pumpkin could potentially replace or at least drastically reduce the daily insulin injections that so many diabetics currently have to endure. Recent research reveals that pumpkin extract promotes regeneration of damaged pancreatic cells in diabetic rats, boosting levels of insulin-producing beta cells and insulin in the blood, reports Lisa Richards in Chemistry & Industry.

A group, led by Tao Xia of the East China Normal University, found that diabetic rats fed the extract had only 5% less plasma insulin and 8% fewer insulin-positive (beta) cells compared to normal healthy rats (Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 87(9) 1753-7 2007).

Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Michigan have discovered a gene that protects us against a serious kidney disease. In the current online issue of Nature Genetics they report that mutations in the gene cause nephronopthisis (NPHP) in humans and mice. NPHP is a disease marked by kidney degeneration during childhood that leads to kidney failure requiring organ transplantation. The insights might help develop effective, noninvasive therapies.