Electromagnetic radiation (light, radio waves, X-rays, and microwaves) contains a varying electric field. When we talk about Polarization of this field, we refer to its direction. A new satellite named the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS),  will be the first to systematically measure the polarization of cosmic X-ray sources. It is a new astrophysics mission led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology lists three cases of patients suffering from the adverse affects of steroid-enriched dietary supplements.  The cases reported by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital include patients with liver injury and renal failure. 

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning regarding the use of over-the-counter body-building supplements that are illegally enriched with anabolic steroids. 

Readers familiar with this blog know that I am a die-hard skeptic on the issue of physics beyond the Standard Model. However, today I am wearing my fluctuation-enthusiast hat, and I will be trying to argue in favor of the possible signal of new physics that is coming out of the Tevatron data. Please do not get confused: everything is still in order. Maybe.

Researchers believe they have located the original source of malignant malaria; a parasite in chimpanzees of equatorial Africa. 

The biologists think the deadly parasite was transmitted to humans from chimpanzees perhaps as recently as 5,000 years ago and possibly through a single mosquito, according to their genetic analysis.  

Malaria sickens about 500 million people and kills about 1.5 million each year so any data that may lead to a vaccine is good news. It also furthers understanding of how infectious diseases such as HIV, SARS, and avian and swine flu can be transmitted to humans from animals.

People who engage in 'brain exercise' activities, like reading, writing, and playing card games, may delay the rapid memory decline that occurs if they later develop dementia, according to a study published in Neurology. 

So is Texas Hold 'Em the key to a healthy brain in old age?   Yes, though crossword puzzles and playing music worked as well.  But you can't gloat over a crossword puzzle.

The study involved 488 people aged 75 to 85 who did not have dementia at the start of the study. They were followed for an average of five years and during that time 101 of the subjects developed dementia. 

Like Goldilocks and her porridge, people today want their food to be perfect.   But when you look at something like a pineapple in a supermarket, how do you know what's 'just ripe' and what is spoiled, or not ripe yet?  They all look the same.

New technology that uses volatile components to detect when pineapple is ripe and when it can be delivered to the supermarket may help. The system has been developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Schmallenberg and for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM in Freiburg to check gas emissions, such as in a warehouse.

Scientists say they have discovered a unique 'DNA signature' in human sperm, which may act as a key that unlocks an egg's fertility and triggers new life. 

Drs David Miller and David Iles from the University of Leeds, in collaboration with Dr Martin Brinkworth at the University of Bradford, say they have found that sperm writes a DNA signature that can only be recognized by an egg from the same species. This enables fertilization and may even explain how a species develops its own unique genetic identity. 

Without the right 'key', successful fertilization either cannot occur, or if it does, development will not proceed normally. Notably, disturbances in human sperm DNA packaging are known to cause male infertility and pregnancy failures. 

Call it irreversibility, call it time's arrow, call it the second law of thermodynamics. Fact is that everything evolves in such a way that things get more messy. Disorder rises. Entropy increases. We do not observe the opposite happening. Heat flows from from hot to cold, not the other way around. Fluids mix but don't unmix. Shattered pieces of crystal don't reassemble into a vase.

Don't chew someone else's food if you have HIV or AIDS?   Sure, that sounds like common sense but lots of things that seem like common sense to some are abstract to others - try explaining geodesics, Euclidean geometry and spacetime to people who just need a gas station and want to know the quickest route.

But science does studies so common sense can be science rather than urban myth so researchers have verified cases in which HIV was almost certainly transmitted from mothers to children through pre-chewed food.