It is difficult for pharmaceutical companies to have good public relations in an immediate news and social media world - no matter how many trials are done, people can still have adverse effects or even suffer real harm - and social media detractors can just claim they are corrupt and convince a large segment of their followers. 

To make sure the public has as much confidence as possible in new products, all drugs have to undergo exhaustive, time-consuming and expensive testing. When high-profile media events like ebola, which killed 1/13,000th as many Americans this week as heart disease did, happen, there are calls to throw ethics and testing protocols out the window.

PHILADELPHIA — Higher levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides, two types of fat, in the blood of men who underwent surgery for prostate cancer, were associated with increased risk for disease recurrence, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

A new study of human placenta has provided evidence that  flame retardant chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), implicated as being endocrine disrupting chemicals, and find they can interfere with thyroid hormone action in pregnant women.

The implication is that PCBs can infiltrate the placenta during pregnancy and affect thyroid hormone activity at the cellular level. PCBs were used in transformers and other electrical equipment, paints, adhesives and tape. Although the endocrine-disrupting chemicals were banned in the United States in 1979, PCBs still are released into the environment from disposal sites or products manufactured prior to the ban. Most people have only been exposed to low levels of PCBs.

Tomatoes contain antioxidants such as vitamin C, lycopene, β-carotene, and phenolics. Antioxidants are substances capable of delaying or inhibiting oxidation processes caused by free radicals and are of interest to both consumers and plant biologists. Consumers, for their health-related contributions, and plant breeders for their ability to provide plants with natural resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses.

Look into the light - unless you want to keep your memories.

UC Davis psychologists have used light to erase specific memories in mice and proved a basic hypothesis fpr how different parts of the brain work together to retrieve episodic memories. Optogenetics, created by Karl Diesseroth at Stanford University, is an effort at manipulating and studying nerve cells using light. The techniques of optogenetics are becoming popular for brain function studies.

An international team has retrieved antiquities including tableware, ship components, and a giant bronze spear that would have belonged to a life-sized warrior statue from an ancient Greek ship that sank more than 2,000 years ago off the remote island of Antikythera.

The Antikythera wreck was first discovered in 1900 by sponge divers who were blown off course by a storm. They subsequently recovered a haul of ancient treasure including bronze and marble statues, jewelry, furniture, luxury glassware, and the surprisingly complex Antikythera Mechanism. But they were forced to end their mission at the 55-meter-deep site after one diver died of the bends and two were paralyzed.