In the great debate over genetically modified organisms - GMOs - few institutional nods have been sought so keenly as that of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

A “no” from the influential organization’s food policy committee would strike a blow at Big Gene’s attempt to cow the regulatory system and institutionalize today’s GMO-oriented commodity farming.  A “yes” by the committee would speed Monsanto’s progress and stymie attempts to limit GMO foods.

Hunter-gatherers living in ice age conditions cooked fish, according to the findings of a team from the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Japan, who carried out chemical analysis of food residues in pottery up to 15,000 years old from the late glacial period, the oldest pottery so far investigated. 

The research team was able to determine the use of a range of hunter-gatherer "Jōmon" ceramic vessels through chemical analysis of organic compounds extracted from charred surface deposits. The samples analyzed are some of the earliest found in Japan, one of the first centers for ceramic innovation, and date to the end of the Late Pleistocene - a time when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments.

Recently, there was found in Spain a shelled Pre-Cambrian Critter which showed distinct evidence of a gut.  This got me thinking about the distinction between the deuterostomes and protostomes, interest in which was sparked again by the even more recent article from National Geographic:

Why can you not stop eating until you scarf down a whole bag of Doritos?  Is it a special gene? Epigenetics, like your mom ate one when she was pregnant with you, or is Frito-Lay just fiendishly clever?

Ban-happy critics blame fat and carbohydrate content but a new study found that was not the case. If it were, we could just add ingredients to unpopular foods like Brussels sprouts and affect the rewards center in the brain positively so people eat more of those. 

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center is the official U.S Government source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings. NASA and NOAA,as well as the US Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) and others, keep a constant watch on the sun to monitor for space weather effects such as geomagnetic storms, the idea being that with advance notification many satellites, spacecraft and technologies can be protected from the worst effects.
 

A component of egg whites, already a popular whole egg substitute among cholesterol-conscious consumers concerned, may have another beneficial effect - reducing blood pressure, according to a study presented earlier this week at the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting. 

The researchers used a peptide called RVPSL. Scientists previously discovered that the substance, like the family of medications that includes Captopril, Vasotec and Monopril, was an angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. It has the ability to inhibit or block the action of ACE, a substance produced in the body that raises blood pressure.

Almost everyone who has had an arm or leg amputated experiences a phantom limb, a vivid sensation that the missing limb is still present, like having an itch.

Neuroscientists at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have shown that it isn't just for amputees - the sensation of having a physical body is not as self-evident as we might think and have evoked the illusion of having a phantom hand in non-amputated individuals.

Brain studies are a mass of contradictions. When you leave your job and your home and your technology behind for a vacation, you 'disconnect' some claim.

"Actually, you've just given your brain a whole new challenge," says Thomas D. Albright, director of the Vision Center Laboratory at of the Salk Institute and an expert on how the visual system works. "You may think you're resting, but your brain is automatically assessing the spatio-temporal properties of this novel environment-what objects are in it, are they moving, and if so, how fast are they moving?

The Environmental Protection Agency has always been a political beast - it is political appointees accountable to whatever administration is in power, not the electorate. President Richard Nixon created it, that should tell you something.

Scientists in the UK, Portugal and Germany solved the structure of kynurenine 3-monooxygenase (KMO), a protein implicated in the neurodegeneration (destruction of nerve cells) seen in diseases associated with old age, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.

 It also reveals how to block KMO in a major first step to develop a promising new therapeutic approach for a group of diseases that, despite affecting millions worldwide, remain without cure or treatment.