There are lots of ideas on how healthy habits transform into long-term lifestyle changes.

PhD candidate Marc Mitchell,writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, suggests that receiving coupons and vouchers for as little as five dollars can help people stick to new fitness regimes. Under the guidance of Professors Jack Goodman and Guy Faulkner, Mitchell has completed a systematic review of research into the efficacy of financial incentives in inspiring lifestyle and health behavior change, specifically in people who've experienced cardiac problems. His analysis suggests that these small rewards increase the odds that patients will maintain an active lifestyle in the longer term.

Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that a specific protein pair may be a successful prognostic biomarker for identifying smoking-related lung cancers. The protein — ASCL1 — is associated with increased expression of the RET oncogene, a particular cancer-causing gene called RET. The findings appear in the online issue of the journal Oncogene.

"This is exciting because we've found what we believe to be a 'drugable target' here," says George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic molecular medicine researcher and senior author on the study. "It's a clear biomarker for aggressive adenocarcinomas. These are the fast-growing cancer cells found in smokers' lungs."

A bone fragment from a French archaeological site has turned out to be a part of an early specialized bone tool used by a Neanderthal before the first modern humans appeared in Europe.

Super Typhoon Usagi and its 150 MPH winds will be the strongest weather event this year. 

The radar on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured an image of Supertyphoon Usagi near the end of a 24-hour period in which Usagi intensified by 65 knots. This is more than twice the commonly used 30-knot threshold for defining rapid intensification. The TRMM data was used to create a 3-D image. The data was collected at 1035 UTC/6:35 a.m. EDT on Thursday, September 19, 2013, when Usagi was at category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale.

In my previous article, we took a look at one of the signals generated by the 555 test circuit where the output pin (pin 3) is connected to ground (-) which is a simple series of very brief pulses.

This series of pulses can be used to generate a tone that can be used as an alarm or can be adjusted with a fair amount of precision such that it can be used to tune a musical instrument.

It is often the case that I get yelled at for being both too liberal and too conservative in the same week. It happens because the science under discussion violates the motivated reasoning of someone's political beliefs.  No conservative ever complains that the policy implication of a science issue is a conservative one, obviously, but you can bet left-wing people will, and vice-versa.

Like many other transgenic crops, Bt maize synthesises its own pesticide - a toxic protein produced in its leaves and stems, which kills pests in a matter of days.

It's perfect, except, as will eventually happen in all pest control instances, when insect populations develop resistance to the toxin.  That is why there are controls on how much Bt maize is in an area. To date, management strategies implemented to delay the evolution of resistance have been successful.

While you are reading this article, you could be getting a little smarter, but you could also be losing important information.

An idle brain is still doing important work and in the age of constant information overload, it’s a good idea to go offline on a regular basis, says Erik Fransén, a researcher from Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Telomerase is an enzyme that is the hallmark of both aging and the uncontrolled cell division associated with cancer and in an effort to understand and control telomerase activity, researchers at The Wistar Institute have discovered a protein "motif," named TFLY, which is crucial to the function of telomerase.

Altering this motif disrupts telomerase function, they found, a fact that they believe will help them in their efforts to identify inhibitors of telomerase with potential cancer therapeutic properties. 

Calcium helps strengthen bones in people but it is also a critical nutrient for healthy tree growth and new research shows that adding it to the soil helps reverse the decades-long decline of forests ailing from the effects of acid rain.