Female chimps think sleeping around is more important than finding the strongest mate, according to University of St Andrews scientists. They even go so far as to keep quiet during sex so that other females don't find out about it, thus preventing any unwanted competition.

The research, by psychologists Simon Townsend and Klaus Zuberbühler, sheds new light on the sophisticated mental capacities and social intelligence of our closest living relatives.

The researchers observed the behavior of chimps in the Budongo Forest, Uganda, in collaboration with Tobias Deschner of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

We like to think that newer ideas are always better and indoor plumbing may be one newer idea that should be reconsidered in the developing world, according to Michigan researchers.

Clean water scarcity is not as critical an issue as often thought say Michigan Technological University Associate Professor David Watkins, Professor James Mihelcic and PhD student Lauren Fry of the University's Sustainable Futures Institute. But installing water-guzzling appliances such as toilets can actually promote unsanitary conditions when the effluent is discharged untreated into once-clean rivers and streams.

Instead, a properly built latrine keeps sewage safely separate from drinking water. Diseases such as dysentery attack millions of people every year, often fatally, largely as a result of poor sanitation.

My name’s Ethan White and I’m currently trying to finish my PhD in Evolutionary Psychology. I’m interested in the evolution of creativity and language and how it relates to sexual and relationship behavior.

If anyone would be interested I have a survey I’d like you to take which would really help me out. It shouldn't take more than an hour and some people finish it in around 30 minutes.

Now you might say, "I don’t know you, you pervert. I'm not telling you any of that.

To which I would respond, "Good call.

How is it that a statement by the Vatican has delayed my annual report to the National Institutes of Health? Not being Catholic, I generally don't pay much attention to Papal announcements, but maybe I need to start listening. Apparently back in March, the Vatican suggested that "genetic manipulations which alter DNA" are mortal sins.

Since just about everything I do in the lab involves genetic manipulations which alter DNA (in fact the only organisms in our lab which aren't genetically engineered are the people who work there), I can add one more item to my long list of reasons for why I'm headed to eternal condemnation.

But before I get to Hell, I need to submit my annual NIH Fellowship update. I have a fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, which pays my not-so-large salary. In return for the money, I tell the NIH what I've been doing every year. That's fair enough - the NIH should expect something for their money.

Everything that I have done this year, however, has involved some sort of genetic engineering - which apparently upsets the Pope. This is unfortunate, because if we eliminated all genetic engineering, essentially all biomedical research would grind to a halt. Genetic engineering, in some restricted applications, has its risks, but the vast majority of genetic engineering that goes on every day in thousands of labs all over the world is essential to our efforts to understand both basic biology and the impact of genes on our health.

Mount Sinai researchers have discovered that polyphenolics derived from red grape seeds may be useful agents to prevent or treat Alzheimer's Disease(AD).

This new study explored the possibility of developing 'wine mimetic pills' that would replace the recommended beneficial glass of red wine a day for AD prevention.

Giulio Maria Pasinetti, senior author and Director of the NCCAM-NIH funded Center of Excellence for Research in Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Alzheimer's Disease at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and his collaborator Dr. Jun Wang of Mount Sinai, through a partnership between the Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Dr. Anil Shrikhande, the Director of the Polyphenolics Division of Constellation Brands, a producer of biologically active grape products, tested the hypothesis that certain molecules contained in red wine, in particular in red grape seeds currently being developed with the name of Meganatural AZ, might offset disease progression in mice genetically modified to develop Alzheimer' disease.

The modern debate about protein has extended far beyond the Atkin's Diet and into a large part of our culture. On this site alone, you can find articles written by T. Colin Campbell, who says that 'complete' proteins in meat are a myth, to Seth Roberts and an intriguing interview with Gary Taubes.

New findings in the May issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition(1) describes the conclusions of a Protein Summit held last spring, which brought together the world's leading scientists in protein research and is certain to add fuel to the fire.

The summit's attendees report that eating a higher protein diet - still within the recommended range, but toward the top of it - may play a role in optimal health, as higher protein diets are linked with a lower risk for many health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis as well as sarcopenia, the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength.

Nutrition researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified five common genetic variations that increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, a group of factors linked to heart disease and diabetes. Another variant they found appeared to protect against the condition.

People with metabolic syndrome have at least three of the following symptoms: abdominal obesity, high blood triglyceride levels, lower good cholesterol (HDL), elevated blood pressure and elevated fasting blood glucose. They are four times as likely to develop heart disease and at least seven times more likely to develop diabetes as individuals without metabolic syndrome.

The investigators, who report their findings in the June issue of the journal Human Molecular Genetics, looked for changes in the CD36 gene, which is located in a region of chromosome 7 that has been linked to metabolic syndrome in several genome-wide studies.

A few hundred years ago, the Germans played a practical joke on the rest of the world; they invented a medical field based on the idea that you could cure a disease by using something that caused similar symptoms.

It is called homeopathy and some people still haven't caught on to the joke. Why do I say joke? It's medicine that relies on the "energetic imprint" of substances to provoke the symptoms they already have - they're often so diluted that not even a molecule of the original substance remains - and the more diluted, the more powerful the cure, they say.

Think an octopus is just an invertebrate mollusk with a brain that contains fewer nerve cells and a much simpler anatomical organization than that of vertebrate brains? Well, you're right, and that's what makes them important for learning studies.

Octopuses and other related creatures, known as cephalopods, are considered to be the most intelligent invertebrates because they have relatively large brains and they can be trained for various learning and memory tasks, says Dr. Benny Hochner of the Department of Neurobiology at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Their behavior repertoire and learning and memory abilities are even comparable in their complexity to those of advanced vertebrates, which makes them ideal to tackle one of the most interesting questions in modern neuroscience - how the brain stores and recalls memories.

Researchers have long known that type-2 diabetes and depression often go hand in hand. However, it's been unclear which condition develops first in patients who end up with both. Now, a new study led by Johns Hopkins doctors suggests that this chicken-and-egg problem has a dual answer: Patients with depression have an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes, and patients with type-2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing depression.

For the study, published in the June 18 Journal of the American Medical Association, diabetes expert Sherita Hill Golden, M.D., M.H.S., and her colleagues took advantage of data generated by the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), which examined risk factors for atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, in an ethnically diverse group of 6,814 men and women between ages 45 to 84. Participants in the MESA study identified themselves when they enrolled as white, black, Hispanic or Chinese.