When tomatoes ripen in our gardens, we watch them turn gradually from hard, green globules to brightly colored, aromatic, and tasty fruits. This familiar and seemingly commonplace transformation masks a seething mass of components interacting in a well-regulated albeit highly complex manner.

For generations, agriculturalists and scientists have bred tomatoes for size, shape, texture, flavor, shelf-life, and nutrient composition, more or less, one trait at a time. With the advent of molecular biology, mutagenesis and genetic transformation could produce tomatoes that were more easily harvested or transported or turned into tomato paste. Frequently, however, optimizing for one trait led to deterioration in another. For example, improving flavor could have a negative effect on yield.

A Low Carbon Society (LCS) is defined by proponents as one that will make an equitable contribution to the global effort of reducing greenhouse gases to a safe level, combining both a high level of energy efficiency and security.

They say the results of modelling activities and workshops have demonstrated that reducing global carbon emissions by 50% is technologically and economically feasible. Energy efficiency, consumer responses and the choice of technologies for electricity generation play crucial roles in cutting CO2 levels.

Thus they say the LCS is not a utopian vision, but is both technically and economically achievable and they publish their findings from the Japan-UK Low Carbon Society project in a special edition of Climate Policy.

The cognitive strategies humans use to regulate emotions can determine both neurological and physiological responses to potential rewards, a team of New York University and Rutgers University neuroscientists has discovered. The findings in Nature Neuroscience shed light on how the regulation of emotions may influence decision making.

Previous research has demonstrated these strategies can alter responses to negative events. However, less understood is whether such strategies can also efficiently regulate expectations of a future reward or a desired outcome. Scientists have already determined that the expectation of a potential reward brings about positive feelings and aids recognizing environmental cues that predict future rewards. Central to this process is the role of the striatum, a multi-faceted structure in the brain that is involved in reward processing—and which is especially engaged when potential rewards are predicted or anticipated.

Researchers led by scientists at the Medical Genetics Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have identified a gene mutation and molecular mechanism causing an inherited form of scoliosis.

Mutations in the TRPV4 gene cause a type of brachyolmia, a skeletal dysplasia. Those inheriting the disorder have a shorter-than-average trunk, limbs and fingers and toes, and are affected by scoliosis, primarily in the lumbar vertebrae.

Mutations of the TRPV4 gene appear to cause increased calcium in the cells of the developing skeleton. This is the first study to identify this mechanism as a contributor to skeletal dysplasias. The findings suggest that calcium channel balance is important in normal spine development. Also, for skeletal abnormalities caused by TRPV4 gene mutations, the use of calcium channel inhibitors could represent a future approach to treatment.

Research by two Kansas State University scientists could help with the large-scale cultivation and manufacturing of oil-rich algae in the oceans.

Algae are a diverse and simple group of organisms that live in or near water. Certain algal species are high in oil content that could be converted into such fuels as biodiesel, according to Pei and Yuan. Algae also have several environmentally-friendly advantages over corn or other plants used for biofuels, including not needing soil or fresh water to grow.

Nearly one in 10 obstetricians in a new study has considered giving up obstetric practice because of the emotional toll of stillbirths and infant deaths.

"In the beginning" were more than just words — they were the beginning of printing presses and typography that brought new depths of meaning and creativity to language. For some designers and printers, the ultimate challenge is the Bible, the design of which could be affected by politics and religious beliefs, as well as by aesthetic and commercial concerns.

Patsy Watkins studied five bibles created from the mid-15th through the 20th centuries to see if the designers’ motives could be discerned within their design and typefaces. The Visual Communication Quarterly published her findings, “Designing the Holy Bible: Arguing the TEXT Through the Form,” in its latest issue devoted to typography.

She chose the Gutenberg Bible, the Martin Luther Bible, the Doves Press Bible, the Washburn College Bible and the Pennyroyal Caxton Press Bible. What she found was that form indeed revealed function as well as the designers’ desire to shape the meaning and hence a reader’s understanding of this ancient text.

Homosexual behavior is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors, according to findings from the world's largest study of twins.

Researchers from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm report in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that genetics and environmental factors (which are specific to an individual, and may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb), are important determinants of homosexual behavior.

The team led by Dr Niklas Långström at Karolinska Institutet conducted the first truly population-based survey of all adult (20-47 years old) twins in Sweden. Studies of identical twins and non-identical, or fraternal, twins are often used to untangle the genetic and environmental factors responsible for a trait. While identical twins share all of their genes and their entire environment, fraternal twins share only half of their genes and their entire environment. Therefore, greater similarity in a trait between identical twins compared to fraternal twins shows that genetic factors are partly responsible for the trait.

In February this year there appeared in Physics World an article entitled Constant Failure by Robert P Crease of Stony Brook University, in which he showed in how many formulae of physics and mathematics 2π turns up, rather than π. This article struck a chord with me, since even after many years I remember the feeling of “cognitive dissonance” when being taught that the formula was 2πR rather than πD.

I felt it a bit much, though, suggesting that Archimedes might have been mistaken in choosing to calculate the ratio of circumference to diameter rather than to radius. In those days, the fundamental dichotomy seems to have been between the geometers who thought of circumference, diameter and their ratio, and the astronomers who used the radius in their calculation of chord tables.

Hipparchus used a radius of 3438 which is the nearest integer to the number of minutes in 1 radian, but Ptolemy preferred 3600 as this is easier to calculate within the sexagesimal system. The work of these astronomers, further developed by Hindu and Arabic mathematicians, gives us our trigonometry of today.

It might be hard for the young student to see the fun in math. Up till now it has been memorize, memorize, memorize for them. This can give them a break and tease their minds. Numbers that look simple, just two digits "1" and "8." It doesn’t get any easier than this, but wow can these two numbers do some magic. Consider this magic square:

IXOHOXI