A truly deep thinker must draw on both science and the humanities. Todd Martin, CC BY-NC

By Gregory Crawford, University of Notre Dame

The evolution of science and engineering in the 21st century has transformed the role of these professions in profound ways that affect research, scholarship and the practice of teaching in the university setting.

Micro-imprinting and electro-spinning techniques have led to the ability to create a vascular graft composed of three layers and this tri-layer composite means the ability utilize separate materials that respectively possess mechanical strength and promote new cell growth - a significant problem for existing vascular grafts that have only consisted of a single or double layer.

One in three people say they would risk living a shorter life instead of taking a daily pill to prevent cardiovascular disease, according to new research.

The scholars surveyed 1,000 people (average age 50) via the Internet hypothetically asking how much time they were willing to forfeit at the end of their lives to avoid taking daily medication.

They were also asked the amount of money they would pay and the hypothetical risk of death they were willing to accept to avoid taking medications to prevent cardiovascular disease.

The survey showed:

Does only spending what you make lead to suicide? In the world of weak observational studies, it can. Suicides in Greece reached a 30 year all-time high in 2012, with a sustained upward trend starting in June 2011, the month that the government introduced austerity measures to get loans and help pay down the country's debts, currently at 175 percent of GDP and caused by overspending on social services. 

The Discovery of the Child Erichthonius by Peter Paul Rubens 

By Helen King, The Open University

The science and morality of creating a life with DNA from three different individuals is hot news.

The UK parliament has voted in favor of allowing trials of mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), otherwise also known as three-person IVF, which would allow women with mitochondrial mutations to have healthy children.

15 years ago, the name "Aidan" was barely a blip on the radar of Americans with new babies, ranking a lowly 324th on the Social Security Administration's list of popular baby names.

Then a popular character with that name was on the television show "Sex and the City" and though fathers dreaded that their child was going to have the same name as some other child of a mother who watched the show, it happened all across America anyway. Since then, that name has been in the top 20.

A brilliant-green sea slug can live for months at a time "feeding" on sunlight like a plant and now scientists have the first direct evidence that its chromosomes have some genes that come from the algae it eats. 

Those genes help sustain photosynthetic processes inside the slug that provide it with all the food it needs. 

Importantly, this is one of the only known examples of functional gene transfer from one multicellular species to another, which is the goal of gene therapy to correct genetically based diseases in humans.

Peter Sarsgaard stars as the psychologist Stanley Milgram in the new film "The Experimenter". BB Film Productions

By Kathryn Millard, Macquarie University

Why have the landmark psychology experiments of the post-war era proved so enduring? Designed as dramas about human behavior, experimenters drew on theatrical techniques and tailored their results for cinema – results that, though skewed, have become embedded in the collective subconscious.

An insulin-regulating hormone that had only been postulated to exist has been discovered.

The hormone, called limostatin after the Greek goddess of starvation, Limos, tamps down circulating insulin levels during recovery from fasting or starvation. In this way, it ensures that precious nutrients remain in the blood long enough to rebuild starving tissues, rather than being rapidly squirreled away into less-accessible fat cells.

The researchers first discovered limostatin in fruit flies but then quickly identified a protein with a similar function in humans.

In 1993, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave us "defining deviancy down", a clever bit of alliteration based on the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim from his defining work of 1895. Durkheim wrote that crime is normal, it is going to happen, but by defining what is deviant, a community decides what is not and creates a reasonable standard for living together.