Octopuses, squid and other cephalopods are colorblind - their eyes see only black and white - but their weirdly shaped pupils may allow them to detect color and mimic the colors of their background, according to a father/son team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University.

For decades, biologists have puzzled over the paradox that, despite their brilliantly colored skin and ability to rapidly change color to blend into the background, cephalopods have eyes containing only one type of light receptor, which basically means they see only black and white.

If conditions had been just a little different an eon ago, there might be plentiful life on Venus and none on Earth.

In Astrobiology, researchers note that minor evolutionary changes could have altered the fates of both Earth and Venus in ways that scientists may soon be able to model through observation of other solar systems, particularly ones in the process of forming, according to Rice Earth scientist Adrian Lenardic.

The authors suggest that habitable planets may lie outside the "Goldilocks zone" in extra-solar systems, and that planets farther from or closer to their suns than Earth may harbor the conditions necessary for life.

Obese children aged two to five years old are 2-3 times more likely to be admitted to hospital and have 60 per cent higher healthcare costs than healthy weight children, a study by the University of Sydney's School of Public Health has found.

Published today in Obesity journal, this is the first study to reveal the higher direct health care costs of obesity in preschool aged children compared with those of normal weight.

The study examined the health care use of 350 children including all doctor and specialist visits, medical tests, diagnostics, medicines, hospital admissions and emergency presentations.

Beetles and some other male insects can possess a penis several times longer than their entire body length.

So how do they have sex with it? A recent study has found that male beetles keep their penis tip soft for faster sex, when they 'shoot' their hyper-elongated penises into the female beetle's duct. 

A new study analyzing traffic stops in Vermont shows that black and Hispanic drivers are pulled over, searched and arrested far more often than whites, yet white drivers are more likely to be carrying illegal contraband.

The independent study of racial disparities in traffic stops and outcomes by Vermont State Police between July 1, 2010 and December 31, 2015 found that black drivers were pulled over most often, followed closely by Hispanics. When stopped, black drivers were searched 4.6 times more often than white drivers, while Hispanics were searched four times more often than whites.

A study that is first in its kind and published in Nature Medicine today has looked at how far genetic factors control the immune cell response to pathogens in healthy individuals. A team investigated the response of immune cells from 200 healthy volunteers when stimulated with a comprehensive list of pathogens ex vivo (outside the human body), and has correlated these responses with 4 million genetic variants (SNPs). The study was performed by scientists from University Medical Centre Groningen, Radboud University Medical Centre (both in the Netherlands) and Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA). The paper appeared on 4th of July 2016.

In recent years pasta gained a bad reputation: it will fatten you. This led lots of people to limit its consumption, often as part of some aggressive "do it yourself" diets. Now a study conducted by the Department of Epidemiology, I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed in Pozzilli, Italy, does justice to this fundamental element of the Mediterranean diet, showing how pasta consumption is actually associated with a reduced likelihood of both general and abdominal obesity.

Final results of searches for particles decaying to photon pairs in 2015 data keep hopes alive for imminent ground-breaking discovery

On December 15^th last year, as the physics coordinators of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations showcased the results of their new searches, particle physicists around the world held their breath. Both experiments showed preliminary results from the analysis of LHC data acquired during 2015 at 13 TeV. That unprecedented energy made the potential for new discoveries high.

Helsinki, 4 July 2016: Despite the claims and counter-claims for new embryo assessment techniques introduced over the past two decades, the search for the holy grail of assisted reproduction - the key to the embryo destined to implant - continues. Genetic screening techniques so far have relied largely on the assessment of one component of the embryo's genetic constitution, the number of chromosomes in its cells. Studies dating back 20 years have shown beyond doubt that chromosomal abnormality is common in preimplantation embryos, and becomes even more common with increasing age. Chromosomal anomalies - or aneuploidy - are universally accepted as the main reason for miscarriage and the main cause of implantation failure

Declining Antarctic sea ice extents were a cornerstone of climate models - unless they began increasing. It may be that both are just natural fluctuation according to a new paper which shows that the negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which is characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, has created favorable conditions for additional Antarctic sea ice growth since 2000.

Obviously that could mean that sea ice may begin to shrink as the IPO switches to a positive phase. Climate models have done a poor job of accounting for nature, they have tended to take a trend and made it linear into the future. Nature is not that predictable.