Women often gain weight as they age and a new study in Cell Metabolism says the sex hormone estrogen, and estrogen receptor-α (ERα) has an important yet under-appreciated role in those bigger waistlines. 

Musical cartoons can boost verbal intelligence?  We'll hiatus Science 2.0 and start watching "Phineas&Ferb" right now.

Researchers writing in Psychological Science say pre-schoolers improved their skill after only 20 days of classroom instruction using their interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.

A daily supplement to reduce diabetes?   Maybe.

Researchers writing in Cell Metabolism show they have have restored normal blood sugar metabolism in diabetic mice using, nicotinamide mononucleotide(NMN), a compound the body makes naturally and which plays a vital role in how cells use energy.

All cells in the body make NMN in a chain of reactions leading to production of NAD, a vital molecule that harvests energy from nutrients and puts it into a form cells can use. Among other things, NAD activates a protein called SIRT1 that has been shown to promote healthy metabolism throughout the body, from the pancreas to the liver to muscle and fat tissue.

We've all read about efforts to provide amputees with robotic limbs and we know that  deep brain stimulation can relieve a range of Parkinson and OCD symptoms - a Tel Aviv University researcher has combined those ideas and gone a step farther and successfully implanted a robotic cerebellum into the skull of a rodent with brain damage, restoring its capacity for movement.

In the 1990s, under the guise of wage protectionism, the Clinton administration got legislation passed that made it far more difficult for immigrants to get a work visa.  The concern was that a foreign worker would work in the US for less.  Result overall: Jobs instead went overseas.

Impact in science; we now spend $5 billion a year on STEM programs, trying to convince American children who are inclined to be doctors that they should instead be scientists, while foreign science students educated in the US are forced to go back home where they become competitors to the US.

Researchers recently monitored the behavior of thousands of people as they sang along to more than a thousand tunes and say they have uncovered the common traits in songs that are most 'catchy'.

That's right. If you like to song along to some songs more than others, there is a sort-of science reason why; it helps to be a man, though ironically with a higher-pitched voice.

The four core elements that trigger people's inclination to sing, according to musicologist Dr. Alisun Pawley and psychologist Dr. Daniel Mullensiefen are: