Much like using dimmer switches to brighten or darken rooms, biochemists have identified a protein called CFIm25  that can be used to slow down or speed up the growth of brain tumors in mice. 

Seabirds, marine mammals, seabed animals and other fish actually love human fishermen - because they throw back unwanted fish and that means free food with less work.

New rules have been put in place by the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) bans throwing unwanted fish caught at sea back into the sea –  it forces vessels to haul fish to land anyway, which is a waste of time and money. The new CFP took effect on 1 January 2014 and will phase out the discarding of fish entirely by 2019. 

Are you a control freak? 

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is something else entirely. It is a condition marked by thoughts and images that chronically intrude in the mind and by engaging in repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety. Some forms of the disorder can add an extra hour to the day's routine but some people are so disabled that they can't leave their homes.

Estimates say that OCD affects 1 percent of the U.S. population or more. Antidepressants known as SSRIs work for some, as does behavioral therapy.  Its causes and mechanisms are as much guessing as science. 

The most important fertilizer for producing food is nitrogen.

But, as is obvious with any fertilizer or pesticide or anything else, the dose makes the poison. DDT became a problem when it was used improperly, by people who assumed more would work better, and the same thing happens with people who use too much fertilizer, including the organic kind.

Chemical compounds containing reactive nitrogen are major drivers of air and water pollution worldwide, and hence of diseases like asthma or cancer. If overused, nitrogen pollution could rise by 20 percent by 2050, according to a paper by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Mitigation efforts could decrease the pollution by 50 percent without sacrificing yield, they write.

More than 60 years ago, Otto Warburg said that cancer cells differ from normal cells in the metabolic pathway they use for the oxidation of sugar.

Rather than the typical series of oxidative steps that take place in the citric acid cycle, cancer cells metabolize sugar via the glycolytic pathway irrespective of whether oxygen is present or not.

Writing in a new paper for The EMBO Journal, researchers believe that the reason for this difference in colon cancer is changes in the Wnt signaling pathway, an essential communication pathway operating in these tumors.

3 million men across America experience infertility. Today, researchers described a key event during sperm development that is essential for male fertility - a protein controls DNA packaging to protect a man's genetic information.