Most consumers have an idea of their favorite pizza and it may have nothing at all to do with taste. The imagery on television commercials is gooey cheese stretching from the pie to the slice.

Marketers have always known that cheese matters and now science is backing that up. Writing 
in the Journal of Food Science, scholars went beyond the standard trope of having golden cheese with that dark toasted-cheese color scattered in distinct blistery patches across the surface and a bit of oil glistening in the valleys and honed in on the various aspects that impact the total pizza experience.

WASHINGTON, August 21, 2014 — Diabetes affects nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population. Among the biggest complaints of diabetics: constant finger pricking to test blood glucose levels. Fortunately, research published in ACS Chemical Biology reports the development of a protein that could lead to less pain and more accurate results for diabetes patients. In the American Chemical Society's (ACS') newest Breakthrough Science video, Sylvia Daunert, Ph.D., shows off her "designer protein" that could eventually allow diabetics to check their blood sugar from their iPhones. The video is available at http://youtu.be/x51o8p8j8Z0.

Fungal infections that have been sickening HIV/AIDS patients in Southern California for decades literally grow on trees. For that discovery, we can thank a 13-year-old girl who spent the summer gathering soil and tree samples from areas around Los Angeles hardest hit by infections of the fungus named Cryptococcus gattii (CRIP-to-cock-us GAT-ee-eye).

Cryptococcus, which encompasses a number of species including C. gattii, causes life-threatening infections of the lungs and brain and is responsible for one third of all AIDS-related deaths.

The study found strong genetic evidence that three tree species -- Canary Island pine, Pohutukawa and American sweetgum -- can serve as environmental hosts and sources of these human infections.

The vast reservoir of carbon stored in Arctic permafrost is gradually being converted back to carbon dioxide (CO2) after entering the freshwater system in a process thought to be controlled largely by microbial activity, but a new study concludes that sunlight, not bacteria, is the key to triggering release of CO2 from Arctic soils.

Since climate change could affect when and how permafrost is thawed, which begins the process of converting the organic carbon into CO2, it is vital to know what is happening due to man's impact, what is due to solar cycles and what is due to natural microbes.

Chest pain, breathing difficulties, fainting. Each year approximately 25 percent of patients admitted to medical departments with symptoms of serious illness are sent home again without receiving a diagnosis of the severe symptoms that led to their hospitalization, find Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital scholars. 

And that is in Denmark, where health care is free for citizens.

During sex with a familiar partner, men have the highest orgasm rates - though lesbian women apparently don't do too badly.

On average, men experience orgasm 85.1 percent of the time, with only slight deviation by sexual orientation but women experience orgasm 62.9 percent of the time, with lesbian women experiencing orgasm more often than heterosexual or bisexual women, according to a new paper about a survey of American singles titled "Variation in Orgasm Occurrence by Sexual Orientation in a Sample of U.S. Singles" and published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

People allergic to milk often assume they have lactose intolerance, but they are actually different mechanisms that occur in different parts of the body. 

People with lactose intolerance do not digest lactose properly because they lack an enzyme known as lactase - and that results in digestive discomfort.  A cow milk allergy is much more dangerous because the body's immune system attacks milk proteins with its own IgE antibodies. 

A comprehensive study of rhino reproduction over six years encompassed 90% of the European population of captive black rhinos in Europe highlights and finds that hormone analysis could improve the success of breeding programs.

In total, 9,743 samples from 11 zoos were sent to Chester Zoo's Wildlife Endocrinology laboratory to analyze female reproductive cycles. 

The first comprehensive study of captive black rhino reproduction highlights how hormone analysis could improve the success of breeding programs. Credit: Chester Zoo

It's a smartphone world; a decade ago a crowded train of passengers all locked into their phones texting to other people while ignoring the live humans six inches from them was just xenophobic Japanese culture but today it is common all across the developed world.

Psychologists worry that children getting meaning and context spoon-fed to them with emoticons may be leading to poor social skills in the real world, and even an inability to read emotions.

UCLA psychologists found that sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who spent more time looking at electronic devices.

New research may help to solve the mystery of what caused a spectacular supernova in galaxy M82 11 million light years away.

The supernova, a giant explosion of a star and the closest one to the Earth in decades, was discovered earlier this year and new research into its cause used vast networks of radio telescopes in the UK and across Europe including the seven telescopes of e-MERLIN operated from The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory. These enabled them to obtain extremely deep images revealing a lack of radio emission from the supernova.