The open-access, open-data journal GigaScience (published by BGI and Biomed Central), announces today the publication of an article on the genome sequencing of 3000 rice strains along with the release of this entire dataset in a citable format in journal's affiliated open-access database, GigaDB. The publication and release of this enormous data set (which quadruples the current amount of publicly available rice sequence data) coincides with World Hunger Day to highlight one of the primary goals of this project— to develop resources that will aid in improving global food security, especially in the poorest areas of the world.

London's international fish trade can be traced back 800 years to the medieval period, according to new research published today in the journal Antiquity.

The research, led by archaeologists from UCL, Cambridge and UCLan, provides new insight into the medieval fish trade and the globalisation of London's food supply.

Archaeologists analysed data from nearly 3,000 cod bones found in 95 different excavations in and around London. They identified a sudden change in the origin of the fish during the early 13th century, indicating the onset of a large-scale import trade.

Professor Simon Capewell, professor at the University of Liverpoolthinks there should be health warning labels on sugary drinks. He seeks the political climate of California, which is effectively a one-party state so if a current bill to put warning labels on sugary drinks makes it out of committee, it will mean vending machines would have to carry warning labels. Capewell thinks that can happen in the UK as well.

He likens sugar to toxic chemicals and cigarettes – warning labels for those are "now agreed by almost everyone", he says, leaving out that studies showed those things cause direct harm while juice and soda in moderation do not. Capewell says UK public support for warnings is high, suggesting that labeling is feasible.

Despite claims by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Obama administration that gaining more control over school choices will lead to healthier kids, school-based schemes to encourage children to eat healthily and be active have little effect. England has had similar lack of effect.

Low levels of physical activity and of fruit and vegetable consumption in childhood are associated with adverse health outcomes. School based interventions have the potential to reach the vast majority of children, and evidence reviews have suggested some beneficial effect but the poor quality of many of the previous trials means their effectiveness have likely been exaggerated.

Birds come in astounding variety—from hummingbirds to emus—and behave in myriad ways: they soar the skies, swim the waters, and forage the forests. But this wasn't always the case, according to research by scientists at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum.

The researchers found a striking lack of diversity in the earliest known fossil bird fauna (a set of species that lived at about the same time and in the same habitat). "There were no swans, no swallows, no herons, nothing like that. They were pretty much all between a sparrow and a crow," said Jonathan Mitchell, PhD student in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, and lead author of the new study, published May 28, 2014, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Spontaneous thoughts, intuitions, quick impressions, we all have random thoughts popping into our minds on a daily basis and sometimes they even pop out of our mouths.

What to make of unplanned, spur-of-the-moment thoughts? If you know bad psychologists, you know they can't attend a Christmas party without declaring the entire room as having Asperger's based on snap judgments, but how do we view ourselves? Do we view spontaneous thoughts as coincidental wanderings of a restless mind, or as revealing meaningful insight?