Researchers from the University of Valladolid (Spain) have answered one of science's most pressing questions - which beer is better, dark or pale?

They analyzed 40 brands of beer and found that dark beer has more free iron than pale and non-alcoholic beers. Iron is essential to the human diet but also helps oxidize the organic compounds that give beer, also essential to the human diet - at least among scientists - stability and flavor.  The work in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture indicates that higher iron content in dark beer could be explained by the malt and hop extracts used to produce it.  

Astronomers writing in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society say they have discovered the darkest known exoplanet, a Jupiter-sized gas giant called TrES-2b. Their measurements show that TrES-2b reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it blacker than coal or any planet or moon in our solar system.

Components of DNA have been found in several meteorites ever since the 1960’s, but the question that continually lingered was whether these components were actually made in space, or rather the result of terrestrial contamination. Now, NASA-funded researchers present three lines of evidence that should support the notion that these DNA building blocks were made in space (see figure 1).

   

Figure 1: DNA blocks made in space?

(Source: NASA)

   

So, can the building blocks of life be made inside meteorites?

It's about squid and it's about sperm, and apparently the combination is sexy enough to get this research onto the BBC, MSNBC, Discover, and more. (Not to malign io9--that's actually where I first read about it.)

Usually, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox is presented as if it potentially conflicts with the theory of relativity. This is because the correlation between Alice’s and Bob’s measurements seems to travel with superluminal speeds in one real world. The solution [1] of the EPR paradox shows that this view is upside-down, which is the reason it took so long to solve it satisfactorily.

Scientists and philosophers where trying to understand the quantum mechanics involved without bothering with relativity, because the problematic seems to conflict with relativity. However, in that way, the actual solution looks suspect:

“What do you think we’ll fight World War III over?”

It was an interesting question for a third date, and the first thing my (now ex-) boyfriend and I disagreed on.  I said “cheap oil” and he answered “water.”

Our difference of opinion was largely a product of our upbringings.  I was raised on thunderstorms and flooded basements back East, while he grew up amid droughts and “water wars” in California.

Months after we parted ways, I was reminded of that conversation as I drove through California’s Central Valley, past billboards plastered with water propaganda and tractors shadowed by dust clouds.

Because it is substantially easier, in a globally connected Internet world, to leverage someone else's names, likenesses and trademarks, American courts have expanded the legal rights regarded their uses. University at Buffalo Law School professor Mark Bartholomew is questioning whether these courts have gone too far.  

Researchers searching for new ways to make hydrogen a viable part of our energy future have a new place to look; a natural example of a living hydrogen-powered 'fuel cell'.

During a recent expedition to hydrothermal vents in the deep sea, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology and the Cluster of Excellence MARUM discovered mussels that have their own on-board fuel cells in the form of symbiotic bacteria that use hydrogen as an energy source. Their results suggest that the ability to use hydrogen as a source of energy is widespread in hydrothermal vent symbioses.

Golf is a good walk spoiled, according to both proponents and detractors.  It isn't just the outrageously fickle game that takes abuse, the golf courses, known for their calm scenic views and precise grass patterns, get hammered every day as well.  

Divots created by golf strokes are common  and can be a costly problem for golf course maintenance operations. Although previous research has identified differences in divot recovery across species of bermudagrass and zoysiagrass, little has been developed about actual divot resistance.

Stop eating all of that junk food.  Why?  So, you can live longer, of course.  Get off the La-Z-Boy and go run five miles.  Why?!  So, you can enjoy your old age.  No more drinking and smoking.  Why?!!  So, you can live to be 100 years old.

The rationale often given for converting to healthy habits has been to give you a longer life.  Who better to know about long lives than those that are closing in on the big 100.  The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were nearly 425,000 people aged 95 and older living in the U.S. in 2010 − still only a small percentage of the 40 million U.S. adults 65 and over.