Lovers of french fries, rejoice: the new, non-bruising potato made by Idaho food giant Simplot has hit the market.

Authors of a new report have examined the use of gender quotas to increase the number of women at the highest career levels in academia. 'Exploring quotas in academia', a report of a study conducted by EMBO in collaboration with the Robert Bosch Stiftung, looks at the potential benefits and challenges that could arise from the use of quotas as one way to achieve better gender balance in academia. The report describes options for introducing quotas and provides information for decision makers who might consider implementing them.

Though gluten sensitivity can be claimed by anyone embracing a popular food fad, celiac disease must be diagnosed, and that requires a tissue sample from the small intestine, which can be extremely unpleasant. 

But it's important because in celiac disease the immune system regards gluten as a virus or bacteria, which causes the body to trigger an unnecessary inflammatory reaction in the small intestine - an autoimmune reaction. When the food that you eat enters the small intestine, it is reduced to tiny fractions and presented to the T cells on HLA molecules. The HLA molecules present various elements of what you consume, as well as what is inside the cells. 

A recent paper suggests cooking with spices and herbs could close the 1,000 mg gap between the amount of sodium Americans actually consume on a daily basis and the amount recommended by the government Dietary Guidelines for Americans committee.  

In the study, researchers taught adults to flavor their food with spices and herbs instead of salt. At the end of the trial, the intervention group, who had tools including spices and herbs as well as cooking demonstrations, were able to reduce sodium intake by an average of 956.8 mg/day – which is about one-third of the average sodium adults consume each day.

On average, American adults consume 3,300 mg of sodium a day, which is 1,000 mg more than the 2,300 mg/d recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Men with higher exposure to diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), one of the phthalates, which is an umbrella term for a group of substances based on phthalic acid, have lower sperm motility and may therefore experience more difficulties conceiving children, according to a new paper.

Many phthalates are found in soft plastics in our daily surroundings: wallpaper, sandals, nail polish, perfume, floors, carpets and more. Some suspect  phthalates may be endocrine disruptors and since phthalate molecules leak out of plastics, we are exposed to it daily and absorb the chemicals through food, drink, skin contact and inhalation. Phthalate levels can be measured by a simple urine sample.  

Researchhas linked the abnormal behavior of two genes (BDNF and DTNBP1) to the underlying cause of schizophrenia. These findings have provided a new target for schizophrenia treatment.

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that affects nearly 1% of the total human population. The dominant cause of the disorder lies in impaired brain development that eventually leads to imbalanced signals within the brain. This imbalance within the brain is thought to cause hallucinations and paranoia in people with schizophrenia.

We get many sensational news stories, saying a giant asteroid will hit Earth, or will nearly miss us. Several so far this year. Many of us worry about these things. So what is the truth behind them?

Actually astronomers have this well in hand for the largest asteroids. They have found 90% of the largest asteroids likely to hit Earth. This is mainly due to Pan-STARRS, which takes a 1.4 gigapixel image of a three degrees span of the night sky several times a minute. It continues to find a new large asteroid about once a month, and will find most of the remaining 10% by the 2020s.

In this age of the 24-hour news cycle, instant access to all information everywhere, PubMed, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and hundreds of other ways to glean and share knowledge beyond the traditional stack of printed journals delivered to their door, physicians continue to struggle to arm themselves with the most effective therapies.

Fast access to information may result in practice change; however, subsequent data may disprove effectiveness and require even more practice change. The cycle may continue over several years and several studies, with the potential for missed information growing with each practice-change decision.

The latest report card on Great Barrier Reef water quality shows signs of improvement, but the health of the marine environment close to the shore remains poor, driven by pollution runoff from the land.

Among the good news is that pollution levels in reef waters have declined in the past five years, and most pollutants seem to track towards the pollution reduction targets set for 2018.

It’s been 60 years since the first TV ad was broadcast in the UK. In that time, we’ve moved from the innocent grainy black-and-white “Tingle of Health” of Gibbs SR toothpaste, to the sophisticated hyper-reality of 4K TV and beyond, in lock-step with developing communications technologies.

The next 60 years will certainly see an even faster pace of change. So what can we look forward to (or not) in the realm of advertising?