Seedless watermelon, salmon, and strawberries all have one thing in common - unlike most eukaryotic multicellular organisms that have two sets of chromosomes, these organisms are all polyploid, meaning they have three or more sets of chromosomes. Seedless watermelon and salmon have 3 and 4 sets of chromosomes, respectively, while strawberries have 10.

Most plant species are polyploid. Polyploidy, or genome doubling, was first discovered over a century ago, but only recently, with the development of molecular tools, has it been revealed just how ubiquitous it is. Polyploidy is being increasingly recognized as an important evolutionary force that can facilitate positive adaptations, lead to instant speciation, and increase biodiversity. 

Consuming an alcoholic beverage may make men more responsive to the smiles of others in their social group,  but now women.

That suggests to psychologists behind a new paper in Clinical Psychological Science that since alcohol increases sensitivity to rewarding social behaviors like smiling, it may contribute to problem drinking among men.

I wonder how interesting can be to an outsider to learn that the mass of the sixth quark is now known to 0.38% accuracy, thanks to the combination of measurements of that quantity performed by the CMS experiment at CERN. In fact, the previously best measurement was the one recently published by the DZERO collaboration at Fermilab, which has a relative 0.43% accuracy. "So what" - you might say - "this 14% improvement does not change my life". That's undeniably true.

Almost everyone agrees the Western world is over-prescribed; except the people doing the prescribing. Symptom-based medicine stopped being used 50 years ago but when it comes to mood disorders, it is still the norm. And "brief depression symptom measures," the self-administered questionnaires are used in primary care settings to determine the frequency and severity of depression symptoms among patients, are being linked to antidepressant medications being prescribed when they may not be needed, according to a paper in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

University of Illinois nutritionists say they have found compounds that boost liver detoxification enzymes nearly 5X, and they've found them in the crushed seeds left over after oil extraction from an oilseed crop,
Camelina sativa, used in jet fuel.

Credit: Flickr/Steve Jurvetson, CC BY

By Kelly E Matthews, The University of Queensland

Research suggests science graduates are struggling with essential quantitative skills and science degree programs are to blame.

Quantitative skills are the bread and butter of science. More than calculating right answers, quantitative skills are defined by applying mathematical and statistical reasoning to scientific and everyday problems.

Certain bats may be approaching wind turbines after mistaking them for trees, according to a study, and that could be leading to disaster.

Propped up by government mandates and subsidies, both solar and wind energy have become more common and thus both have come under criticism. Solar panels are toxic for the environment and their efficiency drops quickly in real-world conditions while wind has been implicated in sleep issues in humans and environmental peril. 

Mathematicians have introduced a new element of uncertainty into an equation used to describe the behavior of fluids, which might make it possible to better reflect the inherent uncertainties of the natural world.

Norway to the rescue? Credit: Travis Lupick, CC BY-NC-SA

By Steffen Böhm, University of Essex and Katharine Rockett, University of Essex

Planetary geologists have speculated for decades that glaciers might once have crept through Valles Marineris, the 2,000-mile-long chasm that constitutes the Grand Canyon of Mars.

Using satellite images, astronomers have identified features they say might have been carved by past glaciers as they flowed through the canyons but those claims have remained highly controversial and contested. 

Now, a joint team from Bryn Mawr College and the Freie Universitaet Berlin has identified what could be the first mineralogical evidence of past glaciers within the Valles Marineris: a layer of mixed sulfate minerals halfway up the three-mile-high cliffs of Ius Chasma at the western end of the canyon system.