Brown adipose tissue – important for generating heat in the body- also secretes signaling factors that activate the fat and carbohydrates metabolism, according to a new paper.

Brown adipose tissue: more than burning calories in the body

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) helps “burning more calories” and making body heat out of fat. According to the new study, this special kind of fat –the motor of thermogenesis- has an endocrine function able to activate the lipid and glucidic metabolism in the body, which has a profile for a future therapeutic target to treat pathologies like obesity.

Tumours are an accumulation of cells that divide without control, accumulating hundreds of chromosomal alterations and mutations in their DNA. These alterations are triggered in part by a type of damage to the DNA known as replicative stress. To survive in the face of this chaos, tumour cells need the intervention of the damage response protein ATR, known for its role as guardian of genome integrity, to which they become addicted. After eight years of work, Oscar Fernández-Capetillo's team at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has discovered that blocking this protein has antitumour effects in several animal models of cancer, such as an aggressive type of acute myeloid leukaemia and Ewing sarcoma.

Researchers from the University of York have helped to solve an archaeological dispute - confirming that Neanderthals were responsible for producing tools and artifacts previously argued by some to be exclusively in the realm of modern human cognitive abilities.

Using ancient protein analysis, the team took part in an international research project to confirm the disputed origins of bone fragments in Châtelperron, France.

Led by the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, researchers set out to settle the debate as to whether hominin remains in the Grotte du Renne, an archaeological site in Arcy-sur-Cure, France, date to Neanderthal ancestry or whether they indicate the first evidence of modern humans in Europe.

With over 120,000 patients in the United States waiting for a kidney transplant, scientists and physicians are constantly looking to expand the pool of available organs through increasing donation and optimizing allocation. Researchers analyzed data from thousands of transplants and developed a scoring system for donor kidneys that they hope might expand the pool of available organs in two ways. They published their findings in the Annals of Transplantation.

I've just been listening to Elon Musk's much anticipated talk about his vision for colonization of our solar system. Many find this idea inspiring, that by technological means, we can become a multiplanetary species. 

Here is the talk, in case any of you haven't seen it yet.

For a summary of the technical details he revealed in the talk, see this article on Space.com

Laterality is the preference of human beings for one side of our bodies; being left-handed or right-handed, for example, or having a preference for using one eye or ear or the other.

In the view of primatologist Eder Domínguez-Ballesteros, "lateralized behavior in humans may in some way have been reflected in their technological products, in particular, in the things they made. Besides, flint knapping -inherent in our genus since the first stages in its evolution- is an excellent source of information for studying lateralization in humans."

Ice cream sellers Ben&Jerry's, which are a division of a giant multinational food conglomerate, seem to have a lot of marketing leeway, because they are claiming global warming is coming for your ice cream freezer.

Many nutrition groups think global warming is the best thing that could happen to their ice cream, with its loads of fat and sugar and implications for diabetes, but they are not selling to those people anyway, they are selling to fat people who like to buy organic, or people who think ice cream is health food if it was made using free-range peanut butter, or something.

Many people today believe they possess a soul. While conceptions of the soul differ, many would describe it as an “invisible force that appears to animate us”.

It’s often believed the soul can survive death and is intimately associated with a person’s memories, passions and values. Some argue the soul has no mass, takes no space and is localized nowhere.

Shrubs are more widespread than trees in nature and on Earth. A new study explains their global success. It turns out that the multiple stems of shrubs are of key importance. This feature contributes to both better growth and better survival than in trees of similar size, according to the research team behind the study.

Shrubs with flowers and berries are popular in parks and gardens, and in nature they are far more widespread than trees: shrubs grow on at least 40 per cent of the world’s land surface while for trees the figure is only 28 per cent. Still, relatively few efforts have been made to fully understand them.