Writing about the weird soft-bodied fossils found in the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted that of 25 initial body plans exhibited by the fossils, all but four were quickly eliminated.

If we rewound the tape, he asked, and cast the dice once more, would the same four body plans be selected? He thought it unlikely.

Obviously, we can't repeat the Burgess Shale, but Ken Olsen, an associate professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, says there are other ways to ask whether evolution is repeatable. One is to look at related species that have independently evolved the same traits and ask if the same genes are responsible and, if so, whether the same mutations led to the trait.

Policy makers may think more sin taxes will cut consumption - but it doesn't really work that way. Supermarkets recognize there are a lot more poor people than rich people and so they don't mark up the same products accordingly.

A paper written by the University of Sheffield with business experts from the University of East Anglia and Loughborough University discovered retailers appear to respond to increases in alcohol taxes by 'under-shifting' their cheaper products (raising prices below the level implied by the tax increase) and 'over-shifting' their more expensive products (raising prices beyond the level implied by the tax increase).  

The symptoms of Cushing disease are unmistakable to those who suffer from it – excessive weight gain, acne, distinct colored stretch marks on the abdomen, thighs and armpits, and a lump, or fat deposit, on the back of the neck. Yet the disorder often goes misdiagnosed.

Biologists have long wondered if mammals share the elegant system used by insects, bacteria and other invertebrates to defend against viral infection. Two back-to-back studies in the journal Science last year said the answer is yes, but a study just published in Cell Reports by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found the opposite.

In the Mount Sinai study, the results found that the defense system used by invertebrates — RNA interferences or RNAi — is not used by mammals as some had argued. RNAi are small molecules that attach to molecular scissors used by invertebrates to cut up invading viruses.

If you haven't yet read that mothers who lived near farms have more kids with autism, you will. The reason, it is said, is because farms use pesticides. You're not off the hook, organic farmers. The results are from California and there are lots and lots of organic pesticides in use in the study area.

You probably knew this but a new report in
Mayo Clinic Proceedings confirms that facial hair, sparks and home oxygen therapy can be dangerous.

Researchers reviewed home oxygen therapy-related burn cases and experimented with a mustachioed mannequin, a facial hair-free mannequin, nasal oxygen tubes and sparks. They found that facial hair raises the risk of home oxygen therapy-related burns, and encourage health care providers to counsel patients about the risk.  

For obese people, food is a habit. They associate a movie with chips or cake and a movie is not a movie without the snack. Taken out of their routines, people quickly unlearn such habits.

Nothing overturns routine like pregnancy - and that may a great inroad to better health. Results presented this weekend at the joint meeting of the International Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society (ICE/ENDO 2014 in Chicago) found that obese pregnant women who adhere to an intensive nutritional and exercise program starting in the first trimester gained less weight and had fewer pregnancy complications compared with peers who receive standard prenatal care.

The United States of America hasn't been interested in building big new physics collaborations, such as the Large Hadron Collider, in the last 20 years, since the Clinton administration canceled the Superconducting Super Collider. The James Webb Space Telescope overruns and President Obama canceling NASA's Constellation program confirm why America has a crisis of confidence about building big and there is a belief that maybe we should stick to small experiments like cute robots on Mars.

6,000 years ago, farmers were truly organic - and the diseases that can bring were even more prevalent then. But prehistoric people can be absolved of any guilt, they had no way to know that agricultural irrigation systems could add to their disease burden.

Researchers recently found what might be the oldest evidence of man-made technology inadvertently causing disease outbreaks, thanks to the discovery of a schistosomiasis parasite egg in a 6200-year-old grave at a prehistoric town by the Euphrates river in Syria. 

The Brus, written by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, in about 1375, covers the Wars of Independence waged by Robert the Bruce, and includes a vivid, early description of the Battle of Bannockburn, which will have its 700th anniversary this week.

It is one of the best-known works written in early Scots and its central theme - that freedom is a prize worth winning at all costs - has resonated in Scotland through the ages and is a poignant reminder before the Scottish Independence Referendum.