Football teams have been wearing numbers since Arsenal experimented with putting their players in numbered shirts in 1928 (it didn’t bring them much luck – they lost 3-2 to Sheffield Wednesday). But it was Manchester United that made the number seven shirt iconic by putting their best players in it – perhaps most famously David Beckham, who said:

Are the sexual interests and behaviors of Quebec residents abnormal? 

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), sexual interests fall into two categories: normal (normophilic) and anomalous (paraphilic). But a new survey finds that a number of legal sexual interests and behaviors considered anomalous in psychiatry are actually common in the general population. So they may be abnormal, yet they are still common. Which is yet another way DSM-5 has suspect value, even as a glossary of psychology.

Can "mindful" eating - taking the time to bring awareness to present-moment experiences with an open attitude of curiosity and non-judgment - lower the risk of Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease?

Yes, say alternative medicine proponents, because in the modern world of science and technology, with extended periods of screen time and regular social outings, it can be easy to fall into the habit of mindless eating - where we're too distracted to pay attention to how much, what and why we're eating. Jennifer Daubenmier, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that the impact of mindful eating could be great. 

I think it is due time that I point out a few interesting articles that have appeared in the past couple of months in the blog of the AMVA4NewPhysics network, a consortium of 16 among universities, research institutes, and industries that has the goal of studying Higgs physics and new Physics with the LHC, using advanced statistical learning methods.

NASA hopes to go full speed ahead with its "Road to Mars" to land humans on the planet, and Elon Musk wants to build a city of a million on Mars by 2100, but it is rare for anyone in the debates to mention planetary protection. I think many assume it has already been dismissed by simple arguments like this one of Zubrin's - but far from it. As some of the listeners said to me when I was guest on the Space Show last Monday, the disconnect is enormous.

This is another in my now rather frequent articles to reassure people who are panicking because of news stories, saying that there is a chance we will all die in a big future cataclysm. No, this is all total bullshit! (I can use the word bullshit because here in the UK it is a very mild word, not even a swear word quite, e.g. often used on prime time TV, though I understand it is  a strong word in some parts of the States).

Scientists at the University of Exeter have found the most robust evidence yet that simply being a shorter man or a more overweight woman leads to lower chances in life, including a lower income.

Modifying gut bacteria could be a treatment option for some of the symptoms associated with the widespread disease polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), according to a recent study by San Diego State University researchers in collaboration with investigators from the University of California, San Diego. The study found that changes in gut bacteria are strongly associated with obesity and signs of diabetes in a mouse model that mimics PCOS.

The best time to identify signs of obstructive sleep apnea may not be at night while snoozing in bed but, instead, while sitting in the dentist's chair.

Gun deaths is a disingenuous term in the modern American political climate, because it includes suicides and assumes a lack of access to guns would eliminate the 60 percent of handgun deaths that are suicides, or guns used by criminals.

Gun ownership does not seem to lead to more murders, and murders are the real concern. There, we have a Handgun Paradox, where even in states like California, which make it more difficult to get a concealed weapons permit, gun ownership has boomed but murders have plummeted. 

Yet if a trickle down effect is acceptable economics, it might also work in guns.