Increased awareness and a much broader range of conditions being part of the autism 'spectrum' has been good for therapists but is placing huge demands on health care systems and health care professionals.

A review published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) seeks to help physicians provide appropriate medical support to families of children who may have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), everything from detection to treatment.

ASD includes a wide variety of traits that range from mild to severe and is estimated to affect about 1% of the population.

The most comprehensive genetic study to date of the blood cancer multiple myeloma has revealed that the genetic landscape of the disease may be more complicated than previously thought. Through results published in Cancer Cell today, a team of Broad researchers has shown that an individual patient's tumor can harbor populations of cancer cells equipped with different mutations. These findings could have therapeutic implications for patients in the future.

While the ability of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to become any type of mature cell, from neuron to heart to skin and bone, is indisputably crucial to human development, no less important is the mechanism needed to maintain hESCs in their pluripotent state until such change is required.

In a paper published in this week's Online Early Edition of PNAS, researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine identify a key gene receptor and signaling pathway essential to doing just that – maintaining hESCs in an undifferentiated state.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Insects represent remarkable diversity and have adapted to all sorts of ecological nooks and crannies. For example, they have taste receptors — novel proteins — with which they taste chemicals and make important choices about not only foods but also mates and where to deposit their eggs. These receptors are widely seen as being at the leading edge of behavioral adaptations.

Now, using the common fruit fly, researchers at the University of California, Riverside have performed a study that describes just how the fly's taste receptors detect sweet compounds.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT engineers have devised a way to measure the mass of particles with a resolution better than an attogram — one millionth of a trillionth of a gram. Weighing these tiny particles, including both synthetic nanoparticles and biological components of cells, could help researchers better understand their composition and function.

The system builds on a technology previously developed by Scott Manalis, an MIT professor of biological and mechanical engineering, to weigh larger particles, such as cells. This system, known as a suspended microchannel resonator (SMR), measures the particles' mass as they flow through a narrow channel.

The families of some very severely brain injured patients believe that once all treatment options are exhausted, allowing their relatives to die with the help of terminal sedation would be a humane and compassionate option.

The authors interviewed the families of patients in a vegetative or minimally conscious state, found some relatives believed euthanasia by sedation would be preferable to withholding or withdrawing treatment. Currently, the withdrawal of treatment such as artificial nutrition and hydration is the only legal method guaranteed to allow death in patients in a vegetative state.

As food science continues to advance, so do calls to label and ban foods that have been modified using modern techniques.

In GMOs, the genes of some plants used for food are tweaked to make them more healthful (Golden Rice) or pest-resistant (lots of others). By the end of 2012, farmers were growing GM crops on more than 420 million acres of land across 28 countries without any environmental or health issues but a well-funded campaign against these modifications has made some consumers leery of it. It was only a matter of time before someone created a comprehensive test for people concerned about GMOs and a group writing in Analytical Chemistry say they have done just that. 

Black holes are all the rage these days, with theorists arguing about firewalls and Hawking's paper being handled by the press in rather improper ways. Meanwhile at the Large Hadron Collider ATLAS and CMS are furthering their searches for microscopic versions of the same objects, which could exist if the energy scale at which quantum gravity effects make themselves felt is orders of magnitude smaller than the place where they ought to be -i.e., at the Planck energy.

A derided 1990s hypothesis of consciousness may have gotten new life, according to a review in Physics of Life Reviews, which claims that consciousness derives from deeper level, finer scale activities inside brain neurons.

A new paper claims that traditional Chinese herbal medicines might slow the progression of diabetes - by slowing the more vague condition referred to as "prediabetes."

Prediabetes is considered to mean elevated blood sugar levels without the rise in glucose levels of type 2 diabetes. Obviously such people are at greater risk for developing type 2 diabetes and then also heart disease and stroke. According to such a classification, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that about 79 million American adults age 20 years or older could be considered prediabetic.