Poor tomatoes. They've overtaken spinach as the organic food we most worry about and they've been in the middle of the genetically modified foods debate for years.

Yet tomatoes have their proponents as well, like HyunSoon Kim from the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) and colleagues from Digital Biotech Inc. and the Department of Biological Science at Wonkwang University. They say this humble fruit could be a suitable carrier for an oral vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease.

Ground cover may be one workable method to reduce the effects of erosion that future biomass harvests are predicted to bring. Iowa State University researchers are looking at ways to use ground cover, a living grass planted between the rows of corn, in production farming.

Government subsidies and mandated minimum usage for ethanol has the industry looking beyond the kernel to the entire corn plant for more fuel because corn is the source of most of the United States' ethanol so turning corn stalks and leaves into ethanol is the target of much research.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that by the year 2030, about 20 percent of ethanol could be made by turning corn stalks and leaves, known as corn stover, into fuel. That projection assumes that 75 percent of this corn stover can be harvested for biofuels. Currently, stover is not used to make ethanol.

Schizophrenia is a severe and complex psychiatric illness that affects about 1% of the population. Diagnosis currently relies on subjective clinical interviews and the assessment of ambiguous symptoms, which frequently leads to delayed diagnosis and treatment. As such, biomarkers that would indicate schizophrenia risk or onset would be extremely useful.

A protein found in immune cells may be a reliable marker for schizophrenia risk, say researchers behind a new proteomics study.

Sabine Bahn and colleagues sought to find such a "protein fingerprint" in the blood (due to its accessibility). They compared protein profiles of schizophrenia patients and controls using mass spectrometry and identified two peaks highlighting a significant change. These were identified as alpha defensins, proteins responsible for killing microbes and viruses in the innate immune response.

Scientists have long been fascinated by structure of bone. Bone is very light but can withstand heavy pressure and he inside is like a sponge so bone is firm and compact in certain places and porous in others.

The construction industry would love to have materials like bone. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Applied Materials Research have developed a simulation program that calculates the internal structure and density distribution of bone material and, from that, the scientists were able to derive the material structure for other components. The program simulates how the structure needs to be built in order to meet the specified requirements.

False-positive results are an inherent risk in cancer research, particularly in observational epidemiology studies. The frequency and impact of misleading results can be mitigated if researchers use more exacting standards when interpreting and reporting results, according to a commentary in the July 8 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Additionally, the impact of false-positive results could be lessened if the researchers and other stakeholders, including journal editors, the media, and consumers, evaluated the results with a more critical eye.

In other words, skepticism remains your friend in just about everything.

What constitutes valid therapy? It depends on who you ask. Some will say that if a treatment works, it is valid. This is why there might be those who regret the unemployment of Tribal Shamen or magic amulet manufacturers - they were associated with success just often enough to stay in business.

Art makes many people feel better, as does music or Boggle, but is it valid therapy or just a happy coincidence?

Elizaberta López Pérez, a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Doctor in Painting at the University of Granada, has carried out a study on the use of art therapy for the treatment of acute mentally ill people. Her work, based on psychoanalysis principles, starts with a basic premise: A work of art is a sign formed as a vital trace and its essential material is the humanity of the human being who leaves his memory in the world.

Art therapy (or therapy through art), started in the middle of the 20th century and uses visual arts for therapeutic purposes. It is based on the idea that visual representations, objectified through plastic material, contribute to the construction of a meaning of the psychic conflicts, and can help with its resolution. Plastic representation would be, from this point of view, a process for thought construction.

Men bicycle frequently could be harming their health if they don't choose the right bicycle, according to consultant urological surgeon Vinod Nargund from St. Bartholomew's and Homerton Hospitals, London, in the urology journal BJU International.

He says problems include genital numbness, erection problems and soreness and skin irritations in the groin area. Men might also experience changes to their sperm function because of the excessive heat generated in the pelvic area.

No general link between cycling and male infertility has been established, but it is still recognised as a possible side effect and has been noted in a number of male cyclists.

Depression is the most important single factor predisposing to suicide, and more than half of all subjects completing suicide are known to have suffered from depression. Unfortunately, depression is still often untreated or undertreated, even after a suicide attempt.

Antidepressive drugs represent the cornerstone of treatment of depressive patients but their role has become somewhat controversial over the last few years due to reports suggesting that antidepressants might, in a small subgroup of younger patients (recently estimated at 0.7% in clinical trials) actually worsen suicidal tendencies instead of alleviating them.

Using ultrasound to measure the height of a woman’s uterus is a good way to predict whether or not she is at risk of having babies born prematurely if she becomes pregnant with twins after IVF, according to new research presented at the 24th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona today (Wednesday).

Dr Raphaël Hirt, a Fellow in the Division of Reproductive Medicine at the Hôpital Antoine Béclère, Clamart, Paris (France) headed by Professor Renato Fanchin, told the conference that the finding would help medical professionals and women make objective decisions about how many embryos should be transferred in one IVF attempt.

Certain songbirds can contract their vocal muscles 100 times faster than humans can blink an eye – placing the birds with a handful of animals that have evolved superfast muscles, University of Utah researchers found.

"We discovered that the European starling (found throughout Eurasia and North-America) and the zebrafinch (found in Australia and Indonesia) control their songs with the fastest-contracting muscle type yet described," says Coen Elemans, who conducted the study as a postdoctoral researcher in biology at the University of Utah.

"Superfast muscles were previously known only from the sound-producing organs of rattlesnakes, several fish and the ringdove," Elemans says. "We now have shown that songbirds also evolved this extreme performance muscle type, suggesting these muscles – once thought extraordinary – are more common than previously believed."