Our cells are controlled by billions of molecular 'switches' that react to our environment.  All creatures, from bacteria to humans, must monitor their environments in order to survive. They do so with biomolecular switches, made from RNA or proteins. For example, in our sinuses, there are receptor proteins that can detect different odors. Some of those scents warn us of danger; others tell us that food is nearby.

UC Santa Barbara researchers say they have developed a theory that explains how these molecules work and their findings may significantly help efforts to build biologically based sensors for the detection of chemicals ranging from drugs to explosives to disease markers.

People who engage in 'brain exercise' activities, like reading, writing, and playing card games, may delay the rapid memory decline that occurs if they later develop dementia, according to a study published in Neurology. 

So is Texas Hold 'Em the key to a healthy brain in old age?   Yes, though crossword puzzles and playing music worked as well.  But you can't gloat over a crossword puzzle.

The study involved 488 people aged 75 to 85 who did not have dementia at the start of the study. They were followed for an average of five years and during that time 101 of the subjects developed dementia. 

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and is an insulating gas.  Hydrogen is also the simplest of the elements: it contains one proton and one electron. 

But at high pressures hydrogen may turn into a superconductor and scientists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C.,  say they have discovered a hydrogen-based compound that could be helpful in the search for metallic and superconducting forms of hydrogen.

Because hydrogen is so light, quantum theory says that it will have a significant energy even when it is cooled to very low temperatures. This is why hydrogen only solidifies at just 14 degrees above absolute zero. 

Like Goldilocks and her porridge, people today want their food to be perfect.   But when you look at something like a pineapple in a supermarket, how do you know what's 'just ripe' and what is spoiled, or not ripe yet?  They all look the same.

New technology that uses volatile components to detect when pineapple is ripe and when it can be delivered to the supermarket may help. The system has been developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Schmallenberg and for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM in Freiburg to check gas emissions, such as in a warehouse.

Many children born outside of marriage are born to parents in unstable relationships and often live apart from their fathers.   

New research from the Journal of Marriage and Family says that children born outside of marriage are less likely to be visited by their father when the mother becomes involved in a new romantic relationship.  Fathers of illegitimate children are likely to not visit their child at all if the child’s mother forms a new relationship early in the child’s life, especially if the new couple lives together and the new partner becomes involved in childrearing activities.

Scientists say they have discovered a unique 'DNA signature' in human sperm, which may act as a key that unlocks an egg's fertility and triggers new life. 

Drs David Miller and David Iles from the University of Leeds, in collaboration with Dr Martin Brinkworth at the University of Bradford, say they have found that sperm writes a DNA signature that can only be recognized by an egg from the same species. This enables fertilization and may even explain how a species develops its own unique genetic identity. 

Without the right 'key', successful fertilization either cannot occur, or if it does, development will not proceed normally. Notably, disturbances in human sperm DNA packaging are known to cause male infertility and pregnancy failures. 

A new class of antibody drugs may help in treatment of childhood eye diseases but specialists need to be alert for the possibility of serious side effects, according to an editorial in the August Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS).



In the editorial, Dr. Robert L. Avery discusses issues related to the use of antibodies against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in pediatric ophthalmology.

Call it irreversibility, call it time's arrow, call it the second law of thermodynamics. Fact is that everything evolves in such a way that things get more messy. Disorder rises. Entropy increases. We do not observe the opposite happening. Heat flows from from hot to cold, not the other way around. Fluids mix but don't unmix. Shattered pieces of crystal don't reassemble into a vase.

Don't chew someone else's food if you have HIV or AIDS?   Sure, that sounds like common sense but lots of things that seem like common sense to some are abstract to others - try explaining geodesics, Euclidean geometry and spacetime to people who just need a gas station and want to know the quickest route.

But science does studies so common sense can be science rather than urban myth so researchers have verified cases in which HIV was almost certainly transmitted from mothers to children through pre-chewed food.

Your mother, despite lacking an expensive lab studying phytochemicals or a PhD (well, for most of us anyway) told you that carrots would help you see better.    

And she was right, but purple carrots here and there may be even better for you because they have anthocyanins.

But carrots are not the only way to go, it turns out.   New research suggests that a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent one of the leading causes of legal blindness among the elderly.