The cost of a degree just keeps rising. Is it still worth it? Shutterstock

By Robert Reich, University of California, Berkeley

The early admissions deadlines for universities across the country have come and gone, and acceptance letters are on their way. But with the cost of a four-year college education rising an average of 5% a year, many students and parents are likely wondering whether the cost of a degree is worth it.

 Edentulism, the absence of teeth, has evolved on multiple occasions within vertebrates including birds, turtles, and a few groups of mammals such as anteaters, baleen whales and pangolins, but where early birds are concerned, the fossil record is fragmentary.

A question that has intrigued biologists is whether teeth were lost in the common ancestor of all living birds or convergently in two or more independent lineages of birds.

A research team using the degraded remnants of tooth genes in birds to determine when birds lost their teeth believes that teeth were lost in the common ancestor of all living birds more than 100 million years ago.

Enzymes are crucial for assisting virtually all biological processes, but there has been little consensus on how they work. Molecular processes crucial to life are made possible by these but beyond that less is known. 

Chemists looking inside a working enzyme have found that local electric fields focused at the active site might play a big role in helping it accelerate reactions. The electrostatic field within an enzyme accounts for the lion's share of its success, they conclude.

A woman sniffs a glass of wine during a tasting event in Beijing. Reuters

By Pierre Ly, Puget Sound University and Cynthia Howson, University of Washington

China’s wine industry has exploded in recent years, with the number of wineries more than doubling over the past decade, propelling the country past Australia to become the world’s 7th-largest producer. What is driving this fast-paced growth and is the quality of Chinese wine improving?

Internet addiction, an impulse-control problem marked by an inability to inhibit Internet use, can adversely affect a person's life, including their health and interpersonal relationships. The prevalence of Internet addiction varies among regions around the world, as shown by data from more than 89,000 individuals in 31 countries analyzed for a study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

The Greeks hailed Dionysus (also known as Bacchus) as their patron god of wine, said to provide ecstasy and spiritual vision to his devotees. Pictured is Caravaggio's 1595 masterpiece Bacchus. Wikimedia

By Robert Fuller, Bradley University

The distinctive "fecal prints" of microbes could provide a record of how Earth and life have co-evolved over the past 3.5 billion years as the planet's temperature, oxygen levels, and greenhouse gases have changed but it's been difficult to decipher much of the information contained in this record.

A new project sheds light on the mysterious digestive processes of microbes, opening the way towards a better understanding of how life and the planet have changed over time. Using a new technique, researchers  focused on the microbes that live on the ocean floor where the microbes consume the sulfate found in seawater because oxygen is in short supply.

Scrapie is a neurodegenerative disease that has been known for centuries and which affects sheep and goats. Similar to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, scrapie is caused by a transmissible pathogen protein called prion.

A new study finds that the pathogens responsible for scrapie in small ruminants (prions) have the potential to convert the human prion protein from a healthy state to a pathological state. In mice models reproducing the human species barrier, this prion induces a disease similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.

A guy messes up his life, and the lives of those around him. We send him for rehabilitation: A jail term, AA meetings, community service, anger management classes, or restitution to victims.