Consumers could soon be paying a lot more for meat, milk, eggs and other farm staples
if bad weather withers a U.S. corn crop that is now tethered to grain-intensive renewable fuel mandates, a new University of Illinois study warns.

A corn shortage, coupled with surging demand to meet government-ordered ethanol standards, could push cash prices to $7 a bushel, the study found, squeezing livestock producers and spiking grocery prices. The study warns that federal policymakers need to forge solutions now to cushion the blow of a shortfall that history shows is a matter of when and how severe, not if.

A new study published in Neuron suggests that our ability to respond with outrage toward people who attempt to harm us is seated in a brain region called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC).

Patients with damage to this brain area are unable to conjure a normal emotional response to hypothetical situations in which a person tries, but fails, to kill another person. Therefore, they judge the situation based only on the outcome, and do not hold the attempted murderer morally responsible.

The findings support the idea that making moral judgments requires at least two processes — a logical assessment of the intention, and an emotional reaction to it.

People in developed nations are living as much as a decade longer than their parents did as a result of staying healthy to a more advanced age, according to a new review published in Nature.

The better health in older age stems from public health efforts to improve living conditions and prevent disease, and from improved medical interventions, said author James Vaupel, who heads Duke University's Center on the Demography of Aging.

Over the past 170 years, in the countries with the highest life expectancies, the average life span has grown at a rate of 2.5 years per decade, or about 6 hours per day.

I have an issue with the ladies of Hollywood. As a scientist, I find diamond a most useful material, and the way these glitterate use these stones for personal adornment does, I think, only serve to grossly inflate their price.
 
 Diamond is famous for two properties, firstly its wonderful transparency and secondly its hardness, which are put to good use in the diamond anvil cell.
 

Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar as it defines a number of theological doctrines. However, Easter has always been a movable feast which can take place on any date between 22 March and 25 April inclusive. The actual methods for calculating Easter have changed down the centuries and, whereas the Gregorian calendar is probably the simplest solar calendar we will ever have, the ecclesiastical calendar on which Easter is based seems to have got ever more obscure and intricate.

I have yet to be bored watching the 27-and-a-half-hour extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy with the kids. It is truly an awe-inspiring cinematic masterpiece.

There is, however, one persistently annoying aspect of the trilogy that I am petitioning the studio to change on the next release and for the prequels that will appear soon. What’s that one annoying thing about the Lord of the Rings? You know what it is…

"To Contribute to Mankind"

Dr. Beatrice Hill Tinsley invented the galaxies that I crash. Before I was born, she laid the foundations for the work that changed our view of galaxies as mere bundles of stars into the current cosmological view of protogalaxies that formed, that evolve, that continuously have stars dying and stars being born. She codified how galaxies evolve.

Scientists have development of a new carbon dating method to determine the age of mummies,  artwork, and other relics without damaging them. 

Presenting at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they say the method, called Non-Destructive Carbon Dating, could allow scientific analysis of hundreds of artifacts that until now were off limits because museums and private collectors did not want the objects damaged.

Feeling optimistic may actually help you maintain your health, say psychologists writing in Psychological Science.

The authors claim they have found "the first evidence that changes in optimistic expectancies are accompanied by changes in immunity, as well as the first evidence for a mechanism by which this effect occurs."

The conclusion is based on a study of how law students' expectations about their schooling affected their immune responses.

According to a new study in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, common marinades used to flavor up barbecued meats may be more than just tasty sauces – they can also provide a major source of natural antioxidants, which help prevent dozens of serious diseases.  

The findings, researchers say, are particularly relevant given concerns about the potential health risks and toxicity associated with the use of some synthetic antioxidants. This concern has resulted in an ongoing search for safe and inexpensive antioxidants of natural origins, including those found in herbs and spices.