The UK has a General Election looming on 6 May, thereby giving newspapers enough hot air to puff up their websites. But what should their science writers talk about during such times? With the launch of Britain's Science Party, science journalists can now also join in the ritual inflation of unlikely promises, although in science's case it is more likely a desperate attempt to be heard at all. Mark Henderson of The Times has, however, launched into this with a certain relish, without forgetting that the science reader also wants some data to bite on.

So yes, I'm launching a satellite.  And an $8K Personal Satellite needs a brain. But which brain? IOS' kits includes the BasicX processor; for Christmas I received the Arduino kit so beloved by DIY folks. Both are potentially flyable.  Let's compare.

BasicX-24 (http://www.basicx.com/): 32K memory, requires 20mA plus up to 40mA I/O loads, operates at -40C to +85C. Programmed in BASIC (ugh) via serial cable.

A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has confirmed that chocolate is a favorite snack for people when they are feeling down.

Researchers found that both women and men eat more chocolate as depressive symptoms increase, suggesting an association between mood and chocolate. Future studies will be required to determine the basis of this association, as well as the role of chocolate in depression, as cause or cure, researchers say.

Results of the study were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University are developing a new "virtual" method to analyze movement patterns in children ― and more effectively treat those with debilitating motor disorders.

The team is using a "virtual tabletop" called the ELEMENTS SYSTEM, developed by scientists at Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, to "move" kids with disabilities and provide home-based treatments using virtual reality tools.

"I've been working with children with movement disorders for the last 20 years," says Dr. Dido Green of Tel Aviv University. "By the time I meet these children, they're sick of us. They've been 'over-therapied,' and it's difficult to get them to practice their exercises and prescribed treatment regimes."

For a tiny fraction of the cost of maintaining a nuclear arsenal, the 11 nuclear power states around the world could eliminate neglected infections within their borders—which account for up to 50% of the global disease burden—and beyond, according to an editorial in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

"Great efforts are needed to engage leaders of the nuclear weapons states in a frank dialogue about reallocation of resources toward public health and scientific pursuits for neglected tropical disease R&D and control," says Dr. Peter Hotez, Research Professor at The George Washington University and author of the editorial.

 Researchers from Cornell University say eating less may be as simple as leaving serving dishes on the stove and off the table.

The team conducted a study involving 78 men and women and found that people eat a lot less, almost 30 percent less, if food is not readily accessible--like not sitting in front of them.

The research was presented last week at the Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, California.

The finding provides more evidence for the idea that subtle cues like dining environment and plate and portion size can determine what, when and how much people eat.

Politicians may only tell us what we want to hear, but not just because they're vote hustlers looking to stay in office. Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal, say it's also because voters interpret everything elected officials say based on their own political views.

The authors argue that "it is possible for two well-informed groups of people faced with the same evidence to reach completely different conclusions about what should be done."

Scientists have discovered a deep ocean current with a volume equivalent to 40 Amazon Rivers near the Kerguelen plateau, in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say the current – more than three kilometers below the Ocean's surface – is an important pathway in a global network of ocean currents that influence climate patterns.

While earlier expeditions had detected evidence of the current system, they were not able to determine how much water the current carried. The new experiment deployed current-meter moorings anchored to the sea floor at depths of up to 4500m. Each mooring reached from the sea floor to a depth of 1000m and measured current speed, temperature and salinity for a two-year period.

A study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology suggests that bacteria common to spacecraft may be able to survive the harsh conditions on Mars long enough to inadvertently contaminate the planet with terrestrial life.

Despite sterilization efforts made to reduce the bioload on spacecraft, recent research has shown that diverse microbial communities remain at the time of launch, including acinetobacter, bacillus, escherichia, staphylococcus and streptococcus.

The fossilized jaw of a 95 million-year-old pterosaur discovered in Texas in 2006 has been identified as a new genus and species of flying reptile - Aetodactylus halli.

The rare pterosaur — literally a winged lizard — is also one of the youngest members in the world of the family Ornithocheiridae, and only the second ornithocheirid ever documented in North America.

The newly-named lizard is described in the Journal of vertebrate Paleontology.