Cholesterol has gotten a bad reputation, thanks to mainstream media's penchant for alternating miracle vegetables with scare journalism, which prompts shady diet fad book authors to promote whatever is getting attention this year.

Outside health fads, cholesterol is an essential component of human cells, manufactured by the cells themselves, that serve to stiffen the cell's membrane, helping to shape the cell and protect it. By mapping the structure of a key enzyme involved in cholesterol production, researchers have gained new insight into this complex molecular process. 

A new computer model has estimated ocean circulation during the last ice age, about 21,000 year ago, and believe that icebergs and meltwater from the North American ice sheet would have regularly reached South Carolina and even southern Florida.

Dark matter is ill-defined and never detected so how can a group of astronomers say current measurements are off by 50 percent?

Most of the matter in the universe is hidden. It's not stars, it's not planets, it's not dust. No one knows what it is. But it must be something or gravity does not work. That something is the mystery. Using inference, if 4 percent of the universe is matter, and around 25 percent is dark matter (what is the rest? Dark energy, an even more fanciful conjecture) then the 'weight' of  dark matter just in our galaxy is 800,000,000,000 times the mass of the Sun, say a group of Australian astronomers who used a method developed almost 100 years ago for their estimate.

People concerned about human-insecticide exposure have stimulated interest in alternative bed bug control materials, including oil-based pesticides and detergent insecticides.

But how well do they work? Researchers from Rutgers University evaluated the efficacy of nine essential oil-based products and two detergents that are labeled and marketed as 'natural' bed bug control. 

The non-synthetic bed bug pesticides contain ingredients such as geraniol, rosemary oil, mint oil, cinnamon oil, peppermint oil, eugenol, clove oil, lemongrass oil, sodium lauryl sulfate, 2-Phenethyl propionate, potassium sorbate, and sodium chloride, included the following products:

Researchers have uncovered a molecular process in the brain known to control eating that transforms white fat into brown fat, and that impacts how much energy we burn and how much weight we can lose.  

Oxytocin, called the "love hormone" because it has been linked to social behaviors like cuddling, maternal care and pair bonding, is also necessary for female social interest during estrus.

A study Cell Press found oxytocin-responsive brain cells that are necessary for female social interest in male mice during estrus, the sexually receptive phase of their cycle. These neurons, found in the prefrontal cortex, may play a role in other oxytocin-related social behaviors such as intimacy, love, and mother-child bonding.