New research from a four-year study shows that 'gender bending' chemicals which find their way from human products into rivers and oceans can have a significant impact on the ability of fish to breed, which could have important implications for ecosystem health and possibly humans.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) disrupt the ways that hormones work in the bodies of vertebrates, including humans.    They can be found in everything from female contraceptive drugs and hormone replacement therapy pills to cleaning soap - most well studied EDCs are those that mimic estrogen.

Quantum cryptography is the technology of the future for military and financial organizations because it sends information as entangled particles of light - anyone who tries to tap into the information changes it in a way that reveals their presence.

The data is encoded with an encrypted key but one important limitation is range.  The longest distance over which an encrypted key can be sent is approximately 100 kilometers but new technology developed by researchers increases 30-fold the amount of time the memory can hold information, which means that a series of quantum repeaters, arrayed like Christmas lights on a string, could reach distances in excess of 1,000 kilometers.

Do you fall in love using your heart or your brain?   It depends.    For your brain, says a new analysis by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue that won't discourage drug use, falling in love elicits the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine,  but it also affects intellectual areas of the brain.  That's a pretty big endorsement of the brain being number one in romance.
So if love is in the brain and not the heart, is there 'love at first sight' after all?   The science says yes, according to the researchers, who found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.
 

Can skin cancer be treated with light? Scientists from the University of California, Irvine say they can treat skin cancer with light - the ability to image cancerous lesions using LEDs might advance a technique for treating cancer called photodynamic therapy (PDT).

In PDT, photosensitizing chemicals that absorb light are injected into a tumor, which is then exposed to light. The chemicals generate oxygen radicals from the light energy, destroying the cancer cells. PDT is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of esophageal and lung cancer.

Think you're no good at Chess?   Not a strategic thinker?   You're better at it than you may think.

When we make any decisions related to how we think someone else will act,  we must use reason to infer the other's next moves to decide what we must do. This recursive reasoning ability in humans has been thought to be somewhat limited but new research says people can engage in much higher levels of recursive reasoning than was previously thought. 

If an isolated question asks you if you are more inclined to vote for one politician who lies about limiting his campaign financing or one who agrees to use only matching public funds in the interests of campaign finance reform and sticks to it, who would you pick?  Obviously if political campaigns were limited to that one topic, the honest politician would win - but quality leadership incorporates 'negative' personality traits too and President Barack Obama was able to spend double the money on advertising of his opponent because he used that strategy wisely.