The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium recently published a chromosome-based draft sequence of wheat's genetic code - its genome.

The relics of ancient viruses preserved in the genomes of 38 mammal species have provided insight into cancer’s ‘footprint’ on our evolution.

Viral relics are evidence of the ancient battles our genes have fought against infection. Occasionally the retroviruses that infect an animal get incorporated into that animal’s genome and sometimes these relics get passed down from generation to generation – termed ‘endogenous retroviruses’ (ERVs). Because ERVs may be copied to other parts of the genome they contribute to the risk of cancer-causing mutations.

Despite decades of concern about a looming population bomb and mass starvation, American agriculture has instead 'dematerialized' in a material world: using science, farmers are now feeding more people on less land than ever thought possible.

If science were similarly accepted in Europe and developing nations. we could easily feed 3 billion more people and still decrease agriculture's environmental footprint, according to a paper in Science.

A new small-scale sociology survey finds that the more a woman self-identifies with her profession, the more paid hours she works and the less time she spends with her children, though childcare balance is more equal between a couple. 

Yet the more a woman identifies herself with motherhood, the less time the father spends with the children. And while the more a man self-identifies as a parent the more time he spends with children, this had no impact on the amount of time the woman spends on childcare – regardless of her self-identity.  

A new study has found a way to prevent some of the most serious foodborne illnesses caused by pathogenic bacteria, like
Escherichia coli (E. coli): cinnamon.

A new paper in Food Control suggests Cinnamomum cassia oil can work effectively as a natural antibacterial agent in the food industry - that's welcome news for organic food, which has higher risks of spreading bacteria like E. coli. 

During the 2011 and 2012 migration seasons, University of Missouri researchers monitored mallard ducks using satellite tracking, the first time ducks have been tracked closely during the entirety of their migration from Canada to the American Midwest and back.

They found that as mallards travel hundreds of miles across the continent, they use public and private wetland conservation areas extensively, which  illustrates the importance of maintaining protected wetland areas.

Evidence from human famines and animal studies suggests that starvation can affect the health of descendants of famished individuals, but how such an acquired trait might be transmitted from one generation to the next?

A new study involving roundworms finds that starvation induces specific changes in small RNAs and that these changes are inherited through at least three consecutive generations, apparently without any DNA involvement. The paper in Cell offers new evidence that the biology of inheritance is more complicated than previously thought.

Weddings are a lot of stress, primarily for women but, in 19 states, lots of men as well.

Math can ease some of the burden - at least when it comes to cutting the cake. But first let's show how it works with just two people. Believe it or not this topic has generated a substantial amount of literature in the last 20 years. A cake is, of course, a metaphor for a divisible, heterogeneous good to a mathematician, and there an 'adjusted winner' can be created.

Cigarette smokers are more likely to commit suicide than people who don't smoke. People with psychiatric disorders have higher suicide rates and tend to smoke, so the connection is so simple an epidemiologist could make it.

But psychiatrists now say that smoking itself may increase suicide risk and that bans and higher taxes on smoking cause suicide rates to drop. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that in 2010, nearly 40,000 people killed themselves in the US and every death that occurs in the United States is recorded in a database managed by the National Center for Health Statistics. The authors classified each suicide death based on the state where the victim had lived, as well as how aggressive that state's tobacco policies were.

By measuring how fast Earth conducts electricity and seismic waves, researchers have created a detailed picture of Mount Rainier's deep volcanic plumbing and partly molten rock that will erupt again someday.

In an odd twist, the image appears to show that at least part of Mount Rainier's partly molten magma reservoir is located about 6 to 10 miles northwest of the 14,410-foot volcano, which is 30 to 45 miles southeast of the Seattle-Tacoma area.

But that could be because the 80 electrical sensors used for the experiment were placed in a 190-mile-long, west-to-east line about 12 miles north of Rainier. So the main part of the magma chamber could be directly under the peak, but with a lobe extending northwest under the line of detectors.